Where a Copyright Suit May Be Filed

In one line

A copyright plaintiff may sue where he lives or works, not only where the defendant is, but the Supreme Court has read that down so that he cannot pick a distant branch office to harass a defendant.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 62(1) of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that every suit or other civil proceeding arising under Chapter XII in respect of the infringement of copyright or of any other right conferred by the Act shall be instituted in the district court having jurisdiction, and section 62(2) provides that a district court having jurisdiction includes, notwithstanding the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, a district court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the person instituting the suit actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain.

Why the law has this at all

Because the ordinary rule sends the plaintiff to the defendant. Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 lays the venue where the defendant resides or carries on business, or where the cause of action arose.

Because an author cannot chase a pirate across the country. A writer in Kolhapur whose book is pirated in three States would have to sue in three distant courts.

And because Parliament made the same choice for trade marks. Section 134(2) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 is in nearly identical words, and the two are read together.

The provision itself

Section 62(1). "Every suit or other civil proceeding arising under this Chapter in respect of the infringement of copyright in any work or the infringement of any other right conferred by this Act shall be instituted in the district court having jurisdiction."

Section 62(2). "For the purpose of sub-section (1), a 'district court having jurisdiction' shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, or any other law for the time being in force, include a district court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction, at the time of the institution of the suit or other proceeding, the person instituting the suit or other proceeding or, where there are more than one such persons, any of them actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain."

Two things to notice. "Include" means the section adds a forum; it does not remove the ones the Code provides. And "notwithstanding anything contained in the Code" makes it an override.

The leading case

Facts. In Indian Performing Rights Society Ltd. v. Sanjay Dalia, AIR 2015 SC 3479, the society, which had its head office in Mumbai and a branch office in Delhi, sued in Delhi. The cause of action had arisen in Mumbai, where the society's principal office was, and the defendants challenged the Delhi court's jurisdiction.