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News |  11 Apr 2011 18:41 |  By RnMTeam

FHRAI petitions against PPL & IPRS lack merit - Delhi High Court

NEW DELHI: The High Court of Delhi has rejected the challenge to the functioning of the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) preferred by the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI), reports Lawetalnews.com.

FHRAI had approached the High Court seeking striking down of the sections 2(ff), 13, 33(3), 34(3) of Copyright Act, 1957 on the ground that the sections are violating Articles14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India as well as a direction to the Government and the Registrar of Copyrights to withdraw registration of IPRS and PPL under section 33 of the Act and to direct the Registrar to denotify tariff schemes gazetted by IPRS and PPL under section 34 of the Act as being arbitrary and unreasonable.

FHRAI had claimed that PPL and IPRS should not charge petitioners' an exorbitant fee for special events license, for events organized by hotels on occasions like Christmas Eve, New Year Eve, Valentine Day etc., since the licencee would have already paid the demanded fee stretching over the entire calendar year.

The maintainability of the petitions against PPL and IPRS was challenged by senior counsel for PPL, Abhishek Manu Singhvi on the grounds that they are purely private bodies and do not perform any statutory or public function and since they do not fall within the term State... as per Article 12 of the Constitution, it is outside the scope of the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of the High Court.

This contention was accepted by the Court while citing numerous Supreme Court judgments where the apex court has held that Article 226 is not attracted where regulatory provisions for carrying out business or commercial activities by private bodies are violated, or where a private wrong is concerned, or where the private body is not performing a public or statutory duty.

Accordingly, the court held that the petitions are not maintainable except for the part where the constitutionality of the Copyright Act is concerned.

The claim regarding charge of exorbitant fee by PPL and IPRS was not dealt with by the High Court on the ground that there existed provisions for addressing the same within the Copyright Act and Rules.

On the issue of constitutionality of certain provisions of the Copyright Act, the court did not appreciate the merit of the arguments of the petitioners. The court rejected the argument of FHRAI, where it had contended that exorbitant rates charged by the IPRS and PPL without any regulation, are violative of the fundamental rights of the petitioners under Article 19 (1) (g) of the constitution.

The court added that in a laissez faire economy, every person is entitled to claim any price for utilization of rights or services, since they are not dealing with essential commodities and if the Government felt that the public was being exploited, then appropriate legislation can be passed.

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