Delhi High Court issues summons to Bear Grylls, Discovery, Nat Geo, Hotstar on suit alleging copyright infringement

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued summons to British adventurer Bear Grylls and others on a suit filed by an Indian writer and producer named Arrmann Shharma claiming copyright infringement by the show Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls. [Arrmann Shankar Shharma alias Sameer Shankar Bhattacharya v. Bear Grylls & Ors].Justice Amit Bansal also issued summons to entertainment company Warner Brothers Discovery, television network National Geography and over-the-top (OTT) platform Hotstar.In the meantime, the Court referred the parties to mediation after a request was made by counsel appearing for Grylls..Shharma moved the High Court arguing that Grylls’ show has infringed on his original copyright work ‘Aakhri Dum Takk’ (Till the Last Breath). The Court was told that Shharma is a script writer and television/film producer who conceptualised and scripted the reality show in the year 2009. Grylls' show has been running since the year 2013.The script was copyrighted by Shharma and then pitched to Discovery. However, the channel said that the script did not meet its current programming and inventory needs.“However, shockingly, in the month of March 2022, the Plaintiff, through one of his close friend, came to know that his copyright in the aforesaid original literary work was being infringed by the defendants herein and a show by the name of "Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls" is being produced by defendant No. 1, 2 & 4 and is getting broadcasted on Disney+ Hotstar,” the Court was told..The suit said that at the time he pitched his script to Discovery, Grylls was working with Discovery. However, he later resigned and produced the allegedly infringing show with another channel named NBC “by citing it as his original format/show developed with Defendant No.2 (a producer named Tom Shelly)”.Shharma added that the entire show was created and filmed in the manner as was drafted by him in his original copyrighted work.“The locations mentioned in the said work are the same as that of the said infringing show. The entry, interval, climax and the concept of the entire infringing show was based upon and filmed in the manner so narrated and formulated by the Plaintiff in his original copyrighted script which was submitted to Defendant No. 3 (Discover), keeping in mind the defendant No. 1 (Grylls) as host of the program.”.The matter has now been placed before the Delhi High Court Mediation Centre on January 17, 2023. The Court will hear the suit on February 22..Senior Advocate Sanjeev Anand, along with Advocates Imran Ali, Maneesh Saxena, Cherry Gupta, Dhriti Chhabra, Asim Naeem and Manpreet Kaur appeared for the plaintiff.Advocate Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand appeared for Grylls.