Bengaluru court tells Twitter to block Congress, Bharat Jodo Yatra accounts

A civil court on Monday directed Twitter Inc to temporarily block the Twitter accounts of the Indian National Congress and the Bharat Jodo Yatra for unauthorisedly and illegally using the sound recordings of the film KGF Chapter-2, infringing the copyright owned by MRT Music. The injunction order was passed on the interlocutory application (IA) filed in the original suit by the plaintiff, MRT Music, against the respondents, namely, the Indian National Congress, Supriya Shrinate, Rahul Gandhi, Twitter Inc, and Ashok Kumar. MRT Music has sought a decree of permanent injunction against the Congress and its party leaders.

Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge directed Twitter to take down three tweets which were posted from the party's handle @INCIndia and also to block the social media handles @INCIndia and @BharatJodo till the next date of hearing.

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“Relying upon the documents produced by the plaintiff (MRT Music) more particularly two CDs with regard to copyright piracy and also considering the prima facie material available against defendants 1 to 3 for having infringed the statutory copyright owned and held by the plaintiffs who has unauthorisedly and illegally used the sound records of the film KGF chapter-2 by affixing their logo on the said videos and further considering the provisions of Sec. 79 of IT Act, 4th defendant (Twitter) is directed to remove and take down the links from its platform…(the link is provided) till further orders and further block the social media https://twitter.com./INCIndia, https://twitter.com/Bharatjodo till next date,” the court said.

The court has restrained the Congress and other defendants from using the copyrighted work owned by the music company and also restrained the defendants from illegal uploading, storing, posting, communicating to the public, and digitally transmitting the work held by the plaintiff till the next hearing date.

The court also appointed S N Venkateshmurthy, District System Administrator of Computer Section, Commercial Court, Bengaluru as Local Commissioner to visit the website. The Local Commissioner will visit the website and conduct an electronic audit and preserve the infringing materials available on social media and prepare an inventory of the same and store it in the court’s system in a separate CD, the court said.