New Delhi: The Karnataka high court has refused to quash an FIR (first information report) filed against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh, and Supriya Shrinate for alleged copyright infringement by using a song from KGF Chapter 2 movie in a promotional video for the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Justice M. Nagaprassana passed the judgment on Wednesday, June 28. The hearing in the case was concluded on June 23 and the verdict was reserved.

"The petitioners appear to have tampered with the source code without permission and played the audio which would undoubtedly amount to infringement of the copyright of the complainant. The petitioners appeared to have taken the copyright of the complainant for granted…and therefore prima facie, all these factors become a matter of evidence which have to be thrashed out in the investigation," the court said, according to The Hindu.

The complainant in the case is MRT Music, which holds the copyright for the songs in the movie. The court also dismissed a joint petition filed by the Congress leaders (petitioner-accused) questioning the legality of filing a criminal case in the matter given that there is already a civil suit by MRT Music seeking damages.

"The question of infringement at large itself is before the civil court. They have preferred a suit under Section 55 (of the Copyright Act)," Vikram Huilgol had said, appearing for the petitioners, according to Livelaw. The said provision deals with civil remedies for infringement of copyright.

Huilgol also went on to argue that Section 63 of the Act speaks of "knowingly" infringing copyright, but there is no whisper of that in the complaint. The particular section deals with offences under the Act in which any person who "knowingly" infringes or abets the infringement.

"All that A3 (Rahul Gandhi) has admittedly done has walked or portrayed to be walking with the music in the background. By being portrayed in a video, would that amount to A3 knowingly infringing a copyright? Onus in Section 63 is to show that person knowingly infringed the copyright," he had argued.

Meanwhile, the lawyers on the complainant side had contended that the petitioner-accused had taken the source code, meddled with it, and superimposed a video. "The Act provides for civil remedy and criminal prosecution, in the case of such infringement the outcome of one does not depend upon the outcome of other, subject to all just expectations," they had argued.

The complainant side had further noted that if petitioners are claiming that they were completely ignorant and did not know about what was happening or the fact that that the video or audio was being used, "this is something which they have to establish in the due process".

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