Delhi High Court - Orders
Kartik Sharma vs Sultan Chand And Sons Pvt. Ltd. & Ors on 25 May, 2023
Author: Sanjeev Narula
Bench: Sanjeev Narula
$~31
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ CS(COMM) 344/2023
KARTIK SHARMA ..... Plaintiff
Through: Mr. Chandra Prakash, Mr. Vivek
Singh, Ms. Somi Sharma, Advocate
with Plaintiff in-person
versus
SULTAN CHAND AND SONS PVT. LTD. & ORS. ..... Defendants
Through: None.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV NARULA
ORDER
% 25.05.2023 I.A. 10234/2023 (seeking exemption from filing the certified copies of the annexures/fair typed copy/left hand margin and English translation of vernacular)
1. Exemption is granted, subject to all just exceptions.
2. Applicant shall file legible and clearer copies of exempted documents, compliant with practice rules, before the next date of hearing.
3. Disposed of.
I.A. 10232/2023 (seeking leave to file additional documents)
4. This is an application seeking leave to file additional documents under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015.
5. Applicant, if it wishes to file additional documents at a later stage, shall do so strictly as per the provisions of the said Act.
6. Disposed of.
CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 1 of 9This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:04 CS(COMM) 344/2023
7. Let the plaint be registered as a suit.
8. Upon filing of process fee, issue summons to the Defendants by all permissible modes. Summons shall state that the written statement shall be filed by the Defendants within 30 days from the date of receipt of summons. Along with the written statement, the Defendants shall also file an affidavit of admission/denial of the documents of the Plaintiff, without which the written statement shall not be taken on record.
9. Liberty is given to the Plaintiff to file replication(s) within 15 days of the receipt of the written statement(s). Along with the replication, if any, filed by the Plaintiff, an affidavit(s) of admission/denial of documents of the Defendants, be filed by the Plaintiff, without which the replication(s) shall not be taken on record. If any of the parties wish to seek inspection of any documents, the same shall be sought and given within the timelines.
10. List before the Joint Registrar for marking of exhibits on 25th August, 2023. It is made clear that any party unjustifiably denying documents would be liable to be burdened with costs.
11. List before Court for framing of issues thereafter, on 18th October, 2023.
I.A. 10231/2023 (for grant of interim injunction under O. 39 R. 1 and 2 of CPC, 1908 r/w S. 151 of CPC, 1908)
12. The present suit has been filed under the Copyright Act, 1957, seeking a permanent injunction to restrain infringement of Plaintiff's copyright in original literary works.
13. The case set out in the plaint is as follows:
CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 2 of 9This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:04 13.1. The Plaintiff, Mr. Kartik Sharma, is a well-known educationist, a teacher, eminent speaker and trainer by profession, who holds significant experience and knowledge in the subject of Artificial Intelligence. After tremendous research and keeping in mind the CBSE curriculum, he came up with a framework to teach concepts of the said subject to school students and wrote the books, "Essentials of Artificial Intelligence" [hereinafter "Plaintiff's Book(s)"] for classes VIII, IX, X, XI and XII, which are his original literary works and owned solely by him. In September, 2019, Plaintiff met with the representatives of Defendant No. 1, Sultan Chand & Sons Pvt. Ltd., a company involved in the publication of books, and signed an agreement with Defendant No. 1 in January, 2020, to publish Plaintiff's aforementioned original literary works/ books on an exclusive basis in exchange of a royalty fee of 9%. The said agreement was made in the presence of and with acknowledgment of Defendants No. 1, 2, 5 and 6, who are the Directors of Defendant No. 1. However, no royalty has been paid for the financial year 2022-23 and financial year 2023-24, till date. 13.2. In February, 2023, Plaintiff came across the books titled "Essentials of Data Science" and "Essentials of Information Technology" for Classes IX and X, published by Defendant No. 1 [hereinafter "Impugned Book(s)"], which verbatim reproduce certain portions of the Plaintiff's Books for the said classes and brazenly violate Plaintiff's copyright. The authors of the said books have been arrayed as Defendants No. 7, 8 and 9. The details of the Impugned Books are as under:
Subject/ Book titled Standard/ Class Author
Essentials of Data Science IX Sachin Gupta & Bhoomi
Gupta (Defendant No.8 & 9)
CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 3 of 9
This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above.
The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05 Essentials of Data Science X Sachin Gupta & Bhoomi Gupta (Defendant No.8 & 9) Essentials of Information IX Preeti Arora (Defendant Technology No.7) Essentials of Information X Preeti Arora (Defendant Technology No.7) 13.3. The aforesaid Impugned Books are being printed and sold by Defendant No. 1 across various schools and are also available on e- commerce websites. On gaining knowledge of the infringement, Plaintiff immediately took remedial steps and met with Defendants No. 6 and 10, representatives of Defendant No. 1, on 15th February, 2023, who assured him that the infringing activities would be ceased within a week. On failure to comply with said assurance, Plaintiff filed a complaint against the infringing activities on 05th April, 2023 with the DCP, Central District, Daryaganj, under the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 read with the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
14. Plaintiff, who appears in person, refers to the table enumerating the pages of the Impugned Books vis-à-vis Plaintiff's books which have verbatim same contents. The said books have been shown to the Court for comparison. The following table enumerates the corresponding page numbers of the books which have identical content:
Essentials of Data Science (Class IX) by Sachin Gupta and Bhoomi Gupta Page No. in Impugned Book Page No. in Plaintiff's Literary Work ES 1 ES 1 2 2 3 3 4-14 4-14 (Exact Copy) 15-79 15-79 (Exact Copy) All page numbers have ES as prefix CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 4 of 9 This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05 Essentials of Data Science (Class X) by Sachin Gupta and Bhoomi Gupta Page No. in Impugned Book Page No. in Plaintiff's Literary Work ES 7 ES 5
15 12-15 24 17 25 18,19 36 25,26 37 27 39 28 40 29 onwards complete copy 44 33-36 54 44 58 51 59 53 65 58, 59 66 60 All page numbers have ES as prefix Essentials of Information Technology (Class IX) by Preeti Arora Page No. in Impugned Book Page No. in Plaintiff's Literary Work 1-77 1-78 (Exact Copy) Essentials of Information Technology (Class X) by Preeti Arora Page No. in Impugned Book Page No. in Plaintiff's Literary Work ES 14 ES 11 15 11 17 9-10 27 17 28 17 29 17-19 33 22 41 25 42 25-26 43 26 45 28 47 30 50 33 52 36 53 38 54 41 CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 5 of 9 This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05 61 44 62 44 63 44 66 50 67 51-52 68 53 75 58 76 59-60
15. Plaintiff also contends that when Defendant No. 1's representatives were confronted with the above infringement, they agreed to compensate the Plaintiff, however, such negotiations failed. He states the last royalty payment in terms of the aforesaid agreement was made in November, 2022 for the year ended in 2021-22. As of today, the Impugned Books continue to be in circulation in the market, and Defendants continue to generate profit while depriving Plaintiff of due share. He further states that Defendant No. 1 has also filed a false and frivolous suit against the Plaintiff, alleging that the Plaintiff is not the original author of the literary work - "Essential of Artificial Intelligence". The said allegation is baseless since Defendant No. 1 has been publishing books/ literary works authored by Plaintiff for the last few years which also have been revised periodically. In fact, Plaintiff was recently approached by Defendant No. 1 to submit supplements for Plaintiff's Books for new editions in 2023-24 further proving that they recognise Plaintiff as the original author of the literary work. He contends that Defendant's suit was filed only to pre-empt an action of infringement and as a counterblast to criminal action initiated by the Plaintiff. In any event, no interim order has been granted in favour of Defendant No. 1 against the Plaintiff.
CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 6 of 9This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05
16. In the opinion of the Court, the unauthorised reproduction of contents from Plaintiff's original literary work and commercial exploitation thereof amounts to deriving undue financial advantage and benefit of Plaintiff's literary work, reputation and goodwill which causes commercial loss and prejudice to the Plaintiff.
17. Considering the above averments and on perusing the similarity in contents of the Impugned Books and Plaintiff's Books, the Court is satisfied that the Plaintiff has made out a prima facie case in his favour and in case no ex-parte ad-interim injunction is granted, the Plaintiff will suffer an irreparable loss; balance of convenience also lies in favour of the Plaintiff and against the Defendants.
18. Accordingly, till the next date of hearing, Defendants and anyone acting on their behalf are restrained from using, publishing, selling, displaying, advertising or by any other mode or manner dealing in or using the contents in the Impugned Books and/or any other published material which are identical and/or deceptively similar to the contents of Plaintiff's Books.
19. Compliance of Order XXXIX Rule 3 of CPC, 1908 be done within five days from today.
20. List before the Court on 18th October, 2023. I.A. 10233/2023 (seeking appointment of local commissioner)
21. Plaintiff seeks appointment of a Local Commissioner, contending that Defendants are likely to remove all physical evidence or deny their involvement in the infringing activities. He submits that that the Impugned Books are stocked at the various premises of Defendants in Noida and Daryaganj, New Delhi, details whereof are provided at paragraph 9 of the CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 7 of 9 This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05 application. Further, the said books also printed and sold at various schools, details whereof are provided at paragraph 4 of the application. Plaintiff states that, at this stage, a Local Commissioner may be appointed to visit the premises at Daryaganj, New Delhi and Noida. Accordingly, Mr. Akshit Vohra, Advocate [Contact No.: 9873702336] is appointed to visit the Defendants' premises at: -
(i) 4859/24, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi.
(ii) B-99, Sector 2, Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
(iii) House No. 162, Sector 15A, Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
22. The Local Commissioner, along with the Plaintiff and/or his representative and counsel, shall be permitted to enter upon the premises mentioned above, in order to conduct the search and seizure. The Local Commissioner shall conduct a search of the premises and seize the Impugned Books or any other published/ unpublished material which contain contents identical or deceptively similar to the Plaintiff's Books.
23. After seizing infringing material, the same shall be inventoried, sealed and signed by the Local Commissioner, in the presence of the parties, and released on superdari to the Defendants on an undertaking to produce the same as and when further directions are issued in this regard.
24. The Local Commissioner shall also be permitted to make copies of the books of accounts including ledgers, cash registers, stock registers, invoices, books, etc. insofar as they pertain to the infringing goods. Further, the Local Commissioner is permitted to undertake/arrange for photography/ videography of the execution of the commission. Both the parties shall render full assistance to the Local Commissioner for carrying out the aforenoted directions.CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 8 of 9
This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05
25. In case any of the premises are found locked, the Local Commissioner shall be permitted to break open the lock(s). To ensure an unhindered and effective execution of this Order, the SHO of the local police station is directed to render all assistance and protection to the Local Commissioner, if and when sought.
26. The fee of the Local Commissioner, to be borne by the Plaintiff, is fixed at Rs. 1,50,000/-. The Plaintiff shall also bear expenses for travel of the Local Commissioner and other miscellaneous out-of-pocket expenses for the execution of the commission. Entire fee of the Local Commissioner shall be paid in advance by Plaintiff.
27. The report of the commission shall be filed by Local Commissioner within a period of six weeks from the date of its execution.
28. The application stands disposed of in the above terms.
29. Copy of this order shall not be uploaded for a period of two weeks from today.
30. Dasti under the signatures of Court Master.
SANJEEV NARULA, J MAY 25, 2023 nk CS(COMM) 344/2023 Page 9 of 9 This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/09/2023 at 06:31:05