The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a transfer petition filed by noted music composer Ilaiyaraaja seeking to shift a suit involving the copyright of over 536 of his musical works from the Bombay High Court to the Madras High Court. [Ilaiyaraaja Music N Management Pvt Ltd v. Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt Ltd]

A Bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justices Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria dismissed the plea.

The dispute involves the copyright ownership of over 500 musical works composed by Ilaiyaraaja, one of India’s most celebrated music directors, whose compositions span more than 7,500 songs across 1,500 films. At the heart of the legal battle is a suit filed by Sony Music Entertainment India before the Bombay High Court in 2022, seeking an injunction against Ilaiyaraaja Music N Management Pvt Ltd (IMMPL) from using 536 works that Sony claims to have acquired from Oriental Records and Echo Recording.

Ilaiyaraaja’s company IMMPL approached the Supreme Court seeking to transfer this suit to the Madras High Court, citing overlapping issues and concerns of judicial propriety.

IMMPL argued that 310 out of the 536 works claimed by Sony are already subject to proceedings in the Madras High Court. Those proceedings arise from a 2014 suit filed by Ilaiyaraaja against Echo Recording, in which he challenged the latter's rights over his compositions and asserted his moral and economic rights under the Copyright Act. The Madras High Court had granted interim relief in 2015 and ultimately ruled in 2019 that while Echo retained sound recording rights, Ilaiyaraaja continued to hold moral and special rights over the compositions. The assignment to Agi Music, made by Ilaiyaraaja’s late wife Jeevaraja in 2007, was held to have expired in 2012.

After the 2019 judgment, Echo assigned its catalogue to Oriental Records, which subsequently entered into a transaction with Sony. Based on this chain of rights, Sony initiated the Bombay suit in January 2022.

However, IMMPL contends that the Bombay suit is entirely duplicative of matters already before the Madras High Court, where appeals are pending and a stay has been granted on the portion of the 2019 judgment recognising Echo’s rights.

In support of the transfer petition, IMMPL has also argued that Sony’s Bombay suit is at a preliminary stage, while the Madras proceedings are significantly advanced, and that IMMPL has no business presence in Mumbai and operates solely from Chennai. The petition stresses that permitting simultaneous proceedings before two High Courts risks conflicting judgments and a multiplicity of litigation.

IMMPL was represented by Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan with Advocate Utsav Trivedi, Partner at TAS law.