[BREAKING] Delhi High Court watches film 'Nyay: The Justice' based on life of Sushant Singh Rajput; issues notice on appeal

The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice on an appeal concerning release of the film 'Nyay: The Justice' based on the life late actor Sushant Singh Rajput after it was revealed that the film has already been released on a platform called 'Lapalap Orignal', earlier this month [Krishna Kishore Singh v. Sarla A Saraogi]..The vacation bench of Justices Anup Jairam Bhambhani and Jasmeet Singh sought response from the respondents including the film's director and producer after watching clippings of the film on a website, Lapalap where it has been released. "The movie has been viewed by screen-sharing on the 'Lapalap' website. Senior Advocate Harish Salve on behalf of the appellants has taken the Court through various portions of the impugned judgement causing the court to consider inter alia the release of the cinematographic film to say that respondents have commercially exploited the life story of the appellant's deceased son. It is thus Sr. Advocate Salve's contention the learned Single Judge has misinterpreted the law laid down in various judgements like KS Puttaswamy and Anr. vs Union Of India And Ors," the Court noted in its order. The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by Rajput's father Krishna Kishore Singh against a June 10 order of a single-judge of the High Court who had rejected the plea to restrain the release of movie. The Court refused to pass any interim order of stay but issued notice on the appeal and listed the matter for further consideration on July 14, 2021.Singh had moved the Court alleging violation of privacy since the movie is purportedly based on the life and death of the late actor. The single-judge had said that there can be no violation of privacy when information regarding demise of Rajput was already in the public domain."The appellant impugns the judgement dated June 10, 2021 made by a single judge of this Court whereby the single judge has dismissed Order 39 of the Civil Procedure Code, thereby declining a prayer inter alia for restraining the release of a cinematographic film titled 'Nyay: The Justice' and the interim release of other cinematographic films by a John Does defendant. This order was assailed before the Division bench. When the appeal came up for hearing last week, the Bench had sought clarification as to whether or not the film had already been released. Senior Advocate Chander Lall, appearing on behalf of the filmmaker, clarified on Friday that the film was released on June 11, 2021 on LAPALAPORGINAL.COM, a website carrying similar works for viewing. .Lall submitted that the film had now garnered over 1.2 Lakh views on the platform titled 'Lapalap Original'. The vacation bench of Justices Bhambani and Singh then opined that the proof is in the pudding and that they would very much like to see the film.Promptly, Senior Advocate Lall started screen-sharing and showing clippings from film. He also informed the Court that watching the film on this platform required a very simple process wherein one could login through their phone numbers . At this point, Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Krishna Kishore Singh, drew the Court's attention to the fact that Lapalap was an obscure website and that releasing the movie here meant that the damage was substantially limited. However, he cautioned that the same must not be allowed to escalate basing his arguments on the Civil and Intellectual Property Rights of a person. "According to IPR and civil rights of a person, the daily purloining is entitled to stop. There is a concept of Celebrity Rights and there are authorities for it. The Law of Torts has also digitally evolved in this regard," he said. Salve also placed reliance on Article 21 and the Puttaswamy principle to say that the single-judge judgement had erred insofar as it was saying that if a person is no more, then his rights are no more. He submitted that this can have very serious consequences and would essentially mean, "If a person has built his reputation in his lifetime, this judgement says that that reputation will not survive his life. That's purely wrong."Salve further placed reliance on Daler Mehendi and superstar Rajnikanth's cases which dealt with the permissible commercial use of a celebrity's personality. Justice Anup Bhambhani then opined that,"The issues I see here emerging from the Single Judge's judgement are those of defamation, investigation, privacy and commercial exploitation. As far as investigation is concerned, the making of this film doesn't appear to interfere with the investigation. As far as defamation is concerned, I see there's a celebrity who operated in the public domain and so did his life story. Are you then saying this his life story is also subject to copyright ? " Salve observed that this was indeed the case for life story that's inextricably enmeshed with his persona. He also hinted at the controversy surrounding the unnatural death of the actor and also at the fact that the celebrity's rights would be unequivocally violated because of this unfair commercial exploitation. Justice Bhambhani further added here that prima facie the contents of the film do not appear defamatory. Later on if it comes to that, the Court can make it a question of damages and award money, he added.The Court also said that since this was an appeal, it would not go into the question of pleadings at this stage. The Court further held that no interim order would be given but a notice will be sent to the film's director, producer and distributors. Moreover, the plea for stay on the release of the film was categorically rejected.The matter was listed for further consideration on July 14, 2021..Delhi High Court seeks clarification on release details of Nyay: The Justice, based on Sushant Singh Rajput.Senior Advocate Harish Salve appeared for Rajput's father. The suit was filed through Advocate Sudeep Chatterjee from Singh and Singh Law Offices.Along with Senior Advocate Chander Lall, Advocates Vedanta Varma and Hiren Kamod appeared for the Director and producers of the film respectively..Read full order: