A Bengaluru court on Monday asked Twitter to temporarily suspend handles of the Congress (@INCIndia) and Bharat Jodo Yatra (@BharatJodo) from the microblogging site over a copyright infringement complaint.
According to LiveLaw the civil court also directed Twitter to take down three tweets posted from the 'INCIndia' handle after MRT Music accused the party of illegally using the music of KGF chapter 2, allegedly infringing on its copyright.
The Congress approached the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday against the lower court's order.
What did MRT Music accuse Congress of?
The complainant in the case and owner of MRT Music, M Naveen Kumar, accused the Congress party of using music owned by him for the purpose of "mass circulation on social media". The complaint named Jairam Ramesh, Supriya Shrinate and Rahul Gandhi as the accused.
The videos shared by the Congress on its social media handles, MRT Music alleged, were done so without seeking their permission and allegedly used illegally. The complaint was regarding two songs from KGF-2 — 'Falak Tu Garaj Tu' and 'Sulthan'.
Deccan Herald reported that an FIR was registered under sections 403, 465, and 120B read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 66 of the Information Technology Act and section 63 of the Copyrights Act.
The complainant also said that the accused "stole and misused" the videos and could not have obtained them through legal means. NDTV quoted the complaint as saying, "On perusal of the videos it is clear that all the accused have fraudulently, blatantly and slavishly with an intention of making wrongful gains have unauthorizedly and illegally used the sound recording owned and held by the Complainant."
The FIR was registered at the Yashwanthpur police station on Friday in Bengaluru.
What has the court said?
The court said that it received a CD from MRT Music that compares, side by side, the copyrighted version of the music to the videos shared by Congress. Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying, "These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establishes that if same is encouraged plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums etc., will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging the piracy at large."
What has Congress said?
The Congress said on Monday that it would explore legal remedies in the matter and that it had not been informed of the court proceedings and had not been given a copy of the order.
The Congress took to Twitter and said, "We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC & BJY SM handles. We were neither made aware of nor present at court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received. We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal."