Delhi High Court M/S Tandav Films Entertainment P. Ltd. vs M/S Four Frames Pictures & Ors. on 20 October, 2009 IA No.10000/2008 in CS(OS) 1456/2008 Reserved on: 14th September 2009 Decision on: 20th October 2009 M/S TANDAV FILMS ENTERTAINMENT P. LTD. ..... Plaintiff Through Mr. Jagdish Sagar with Ms. Geetanjali Visvanathan, Advocate versus M/S FOUR FRAMES PICTURES & ORS. ..... Defendants Through Ms. Pratibha M. Singh with Mr. Kunal Tandon and Mr. Kapil Wadhwa, Advocates for D2. Ms. Pallavi Gangoor with Ms. Amrita Bhattacharya, Advocate for D4. IA No.10408/2009 in CS(OS) 1913/2008 M/S TANDAV FILMS ENTERTAINMENT P. LTD. & ANR. ..... Plaintiffs Through Mr. Jagdish Sagar with Ms. Geetanjali Visvanathan, Advocate versus M/S FOUR FRAMES PICTURES & ORS. ..... Defendants Through Ms. Pratibha M. Singh with Mr. Kunal Tandon and Mr. Kapil Wadhwa, Advocates for D2. Ms. Pallavi Gangoor with Ms. Amrita Bhattacharya, Advocate for D4. Ms. Bihu Sharma, Advocate for D3. HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE S. MURALIDHAR 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? No 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? Yes 3. Whether the judgment should be reported Yes in Digest? JUDGMENT 20.10.2009 CS(OS) Nos.1456 and 1913/2008 Page 1 of 14 S. Muralidhar, J. 1. Both these applications by Defendant No.2 UTV Software Communications Limited („UTV Software‟) under Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Act) seek reference of the disputes between the parties to arbitration. 2. CS(OS) No.1456 of 2008 has been filed by Tandav Films Entertainment P. Ltd. („Tandav Films‟) against M/s Four Frames Pictures ( Defendant No.1) („Four Frames‟), UTV Software ( Defendant No.2), M/s Big Music and Home Entertainment (Defendant No.3) (`Big Music‟) and M/s Living Media India Ltd.( Defendant No.4) („Living Media‟) for a decree of permanent injunction restraining Defendants 1 to 3 and their agents and others acting on their behalf from reproducing, making a film or sound recording of, issuing copies of, publicly performing, communicating to the public, adapting or in any other manner infringing the Plaintiff‟s copyright in the music of the song Chak De Phattey or any other music from the Plaintiff‟s Hindi film Khosla Ka Ghosla. The other prayers are for a decree for damages in the sum of Rs.20,05,000 and for rendition of accounts and profits of the Defendants. 3. The connected suit, CS(OS) No.1913 of 2008, has been filed jointly by Tandav Films and Padmalaya Telefilms Ltd. („Padmalaya Telefilms‟) against Four Frames (Defendant No.1), UTV Software (Defendant No.2) and Mr. Jaideep Sahni (Defendant No.3) seeking a permanent injunction against the Defendants from "marketing, exhibiting, distributing or communicating to the public the rights of the Tamil film Poi Solla Porom" CS(OS) Nos.1456 and 1913/2008 Page 2 of 14 which according to the Plaintiff infringes its copyright in the literature and dramatic works created by Mr. Jaideep Sahni for Plaintiff No.1 Tandav Films. In the said suit, a permanent injunction is also sought to restrain the Defendants from making any sequels or prequels of the film `Khosla Ka Ghosla‟ and from releasing, exhibiting, distributing the said film `Poi Solla Porom‟ which infringes Tandav Film‟s special rights as author of the film `Khosla Ka Ghosla‟. A further prayer is for decree of damages in the sum of Rs.23,00,000. 4. It is not in dispute that on 10th June 2002 an exclusive licence agreement was entered into between Tandav Films and Mr. Jaideep Sahni in terms of which scripts of certain songs and the writer‟s rights were exclusively licenced to Tandav Films. Consequent thereto, Tandav Films signed several licence agreements for underlying works including dialogues, screenplay, music etc. The shooting of the film `Khosla ka Ghosla‟ commenced on 8th April 2003. On 5th May 2003, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was entered into between Tandav Films and Padmalaya Telefilms for a joint ventur