Proceedings against Ratan Tata stayed in copyright case

The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday granted stay on the lower court proceedings initiated against Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons Ltd, and Ashutosh Pandey, CEO, Tata CLiQ and a former employee of Landmark Etail Ltd, in a copyright infringement and hacking case.

Justice Aravind Kumar granted stay on the lower court proceedings till August 18 and ordered notice to the Halasuru police and Lt Col D K Havanoor, author of the book “March of a Foot Soldier”.

Ratan Tata and Ashutosh Pandey have moved the court challenging the court proceedings and the complaint registered by Lt Col Havanoor accusing them of copyright infringement, tampering with computer source documents and hacking.

Lt Col Havanoor has complained against Landmark Etail Ltd; Landmark Ltd or Trent Ltd alleging that his book was listed for sale on the website www.landmarkonthenet.com owned by Landmark Etail Ltd apparently owned by the Tata.

He has contended that he had never entered into any agreement or understanding with respect to the listing of his book for sale on the website. Following the complaint, the magistrate court took cognisance of the offence under the provisions of Copyright Act, 1957, and Information Technology Act, 2000.

Ratan Tata has contended that the author is falsely accusing him of apparently owning the website and he was unaware of the proceedings and was surprised to receive summons from the magistrate. He has contended that the author has proceeded on the wrong premise that Tata owns the entity called “Tata Enterprises”, but there is not such entity or any entity known as Tata Group. A common perception or understanding about “Tata Group” cannot form the basis for instituting and sustaining even a civil case or criminal case against Tata Sons or its chairman/directors for an act wholly unrelated to.