The Delhi High Court on Wednesday set aside a single-judge order that had directed music director A R Rahman and the makers of Ponniyin Selvan 2 to deposit ₹2 crore in a copyright suit filed by Ustad Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar. The suit alleged that the film song “Veera Raja Veera” infringed a traditional Dhrupad composition known as “Shiva Stuti”.
What the single-judge had ordered earlier
In an April 25 order, a single-judge of the Delhi High Court had accepted Ustad Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar’s interim contention and directed Rahman, Madras Talkies and the co-producers to deposit ₹2 crore with the court and pay ₹2 lakh in costs. That order had also directed changes to online credits and granted other interim reliefs before being stayed and later revisited on appeal.
Bench reasoning: Dagar brothers were performers, not authors
A division bench of Justices C. Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla allowed Rahman’s appeal and stressed that the junior Dagar brothers — whose performances of “Shiva Stuti” were relied upon by the plaintiff — could not be treated, even prima facie, as the composers or authors of the work merely because recordings and performance credits existed. The bench found that treating performance as a presumption of authorship would be a fundamental error of principle. (Hindustan Times)
Court on authorship, tradition and the law
The court emphasised that “Shiva Stuti” forms part of the Dagarvani tradition of Dhrupad, a body of oral and family-transmitted repertoire, and held that attributing exclusive authorship to the junior Dagar brothers would be inconsistent with the object and structure of copyright law. The judges observed that to equate mere performance or fixation with authorship would effectively rewrite the statutory definitions in Section 2(d)(ii) and Section 2(ffa) of the Copyright Act — an outcome the bench rejected.
Plaintiff’s case and the disputed evidence
Ustad Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar had argued that recordings and a CD inlay from a performance at the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, established the junior Dagar brothers as authors of “Shiva Stuti”. The single judge had relied on such material to reach a prima facie conclusion of authorship. The division bench, however, held that presence of performance recordings and cover pages does not, without more, establish compositional authorship.
Wider implications for Indian classical music and copyright
Legal observers say the verdict highlights a sensitive tension between copyright protection and the collective, intergenerational nature of many Indian classical traditions. Commentators note that if courts routinely treated performers of orally transmitted repertoire as composers, it could hamper customary teaching and sharing practices that underpin gharana and guru-shishya traditions. The judgment indicates judicial caution in extending exclusive authorship claims over works rooted in living oral traditions.
What happens next
The division bench’s order grants Rahman and the film producers immediate relief from the interim financial direction; the underlying copyright dispute on merits will proceed in the regular course. The court is expected to release a detailed judgment setting out its full reasoning, and the matter may yet return to the higher judiciary depending on further appeals. (www.ndtv.com)
Conclusion
The Delhi High Court’s decision is a notable development in a high-profile copyright suit involving a celebrated composer and a centuries-old classical tradition. By distinguishing between performance and authorship, the court sought to balance the protection offered by copyright law with the realities of orally transmitted musical forms, signalling judicial reluctance to allow prima facie relief that could reshape teaching and practice in Indian classical music.