YASH PATNAIK Vs. RED CHILLIES ENTERTAINMENT PVT. LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, we find considerable substance in the arguments of the learned counsel for the appellants-plaintiffs that the averments made by the plaintiffs in the plaint read with the annexures thereto and including the concept note of the first plaintiff registered with the Film Writers Associations, Mumbai on 26 December 2006. are sufficient at this stage to enable the Court to hold prima facie that the first plaintiff has copyright in the concept embodied in the said concept note including the materials graphics, illustrations and drawings, monograms and the scenes and the pictures of the flying robots in the gadgets. The undisputed averments in the plaint indicate that the first plaintiff had handed over the concept note and the other material to defendant No. 4 in November/December 2006 and defendant No. 4 had encouraged the first plaintiff to further develop and submit more detailed characters, outdoor designs etc. for the project. None of the defendants not even defendant No. 4 has filed any reply to the notice of motion or written statement to the plaint nor given any reply to the notice dated 1 October 2011.

(2.) We also find substance in the submission made on behalf of the appellants-plaintiffs that the ad-interim relief should not have been declined on the ground of delay. Although the defendants had commenced promotions of the film RA One, according to the defendants, in January 2011, it was when the defendants released more content and visuals of the film in public domain that the first plaintiff found credible evidence to connect the content created by him with that produced by the defendants. It was particularly when the first plaintiff found that the promotion of the film as per the posters and publicity materials of the film indicated the name of defendant No. 4 as screen play writer of the film that the first plaintiff immediately realised that the defendants were acting upon the concept note and the material supplied by the first plaintiff to defendant No. 4. In fact, it was in one of the recently released thearitical promos to the plaintiffs' notice where the lead character of the film stands on a high rise overlooking the cityscape with the water body in the foreground which was the same as the end page in the plaintiffs' concept note. The first plaintiff was, therefore, convinced that the scenes in the film are exact lift from the presentation submitted by respondent defendant No. 2 to defendant No. 4 by the end of 2006.

(3.) In view of the uncontroverted averments in the plaint, in our view, the appellant-plaintiff has, at this stage, satisfactorily answered both the objections of the defendants which had commended to the learned trial Judge. The efforts put in by the first plaintiff commencing from 2002 including the concept note and the development of the concept and the story line by the plaintiff are sufficient to confer upon the first plaintiff the copyright in the concept note and the other material developing the said concept which prima facie appears to have been relied upon by the defendants for making the film RA One.