A short while ago, I
was given to understand that today the Supreme Court of India has ruled that
the Copyright Board does not have the power to pass interim orders in
proceedings instituted under Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Section 31
deals with the power of the Copyright Board to grant compulsory license in
respect of copyrighted works.
The said decision was passed in a
Special Leave Petition against a decision of Justice Vikramjit Sen of the Delhi
High Court delivered on September
1, 2011.
Justice Sen in his order of September 2011 had
ruled thus:
“We make it clear that
the Copyright Board is free to come to its own conclusion in respect of an
interim arrangement as well as final terms of a compulsory licence, if it finds
no impediment in doing so, without being influenced in any manner by the
interim arrangement devised by us.”
I tend to agree with the decision of Justice Sen because a
body such as the Copyright Board, which is vested with the power to fix final
royalties must be logically deemed to have the power to decide interim
royalties as well until a final decision is taken. It is surprising that the
Supreme Court is of the opinion that the Board does not have the inherent equitable
power to fix interim rates.
Before commenting any further, we will await the release of
the final copy of the written order.
JSD:
ReplyDeleteWhat, if any, should we learn from this paragraph and the Patent office:
"43. It is no doubt true, that Tribunals discharging quasi-judicial functions and having the trappings of a Court, are generally considered to be vested with incidental and ancillary powers to discharge their functions, but that cannot surely mean that in the absence of any provision to the contrary, such Tribunal would have the power to grant at the interim stage the final relief which it could grant."
Regards,
Freq. Anon.