Kerala High Court dismisses plea by producer of Kantara movie against injunction on use of "Varaha Roopam" song

The Kerala High Court Wednesday dismissed the petitions filed by the producer of Kantara movie, Hombale Films against ad-interim injunction orders passed by the two District Courts against the use of "Varaha Roopam" song in the movie over alleged copyright infringement [Hombale Films v The Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Company Ltd and others]..The Kerala High Court held that the plea by the Hombale against the orders of the two courts below, contains mixed questions of law and facts, and thus cannot be looked into at the ad interim stage and is not maintainable. “It is not for this Court to examine each and every contention raised in the original petition, that too at the ad interim stage, and rule upon their worthiness and correctness. If this Court carries out such an exercise, it will foreclose the statutory rights of the parties and will undoubtedly cause grave prejudice to them,” Justice CS Dias said.The Court clarified that its supervisory jurisdiction is not to intermeddle with every interim order passed by the subordinate court.“The supervisory jurisdiction of this Court is not to be exercised to inter-meddle with every ad-interim order passed by the subordinate courts. If that is the case, the Courts of original jurisdiction and appellate Courts will become defunct, and this Court will be flooded with such litigation, unsettling and dislodging the legislative framework laid down under the Code,” the judgement said..The High Court was considering two petitions challenging the orders of the Palakkad District Court and the Kozhikode District Court which had passed temporary injunction in order to restrain the makers of the Kannada movie “Kantara” from using the song “Varaha Roopam” on streaming platforms and in movie theatres.The Kozhikode District Court had passed its order in a suit filed by Thaikkudam Bridge, the band which created and performed the song called “Navarasam”. The Palakkad court order came in a suit filed by Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Company Ltd, which is the copyright holder of “Navarasam”.The injunction order restrained Hombale Films from exhibiting, releasing on OTT platforms, streaming, distributing, or communicating to the public, the song “Varaha Roopam” until further orders.The producer then approached the High Court by way of the present plea which came to be dismissed.The movie is currently being exhibited without the song.The petitioners were represented by advocates Santhosh Mathew, Saikrishna Rajagopal, Sidharth Chopra, Arun Thomas, Anil Sebastian Pulickel, Abi Benny Areeckal, Mathew Nevin Thomas, Karthik Rajagopal, and Kurian Antony Mathew..[Read Judgement]