Satyajit Ray first owner of copyright in ‘Nayak’, right to novelize screenplay also vests with him: Delhi HC

In its lawsuit, the plaintiff – RDB and Co HUF – asserted that R D Bansal had commissioned Ray to write the screenplay and direct the film. Claiming to be the “successor in title” to Bansal, the suit stated that the copyright for the film vested with the producer at all times. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff claimed that the novelisation of the screenplay of the film by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, and its publication by the defendant HarperCollins Publishers India Private Limited, constitutes infringement of the plaintiff‘s copyright.

“Copyright in the screenplay of the film ‘Nayak’ vested, therefore, consequent on the demise of Satyajit Ray, on his son Sandip Ray and the SPSRA. The conferment of the right to novelize the screenplay, by Sandip Ray and the SPSRA on the defendant, therefore, is wholly in order,” the HC said.

The court noted that the plaintiff had not “chosen to discredit the grant of the right to novelize” the screenplay of the film to HarperCollins on any ground other than the contention that the “copyright in the screenplay vested, not in Sandip Ray and the SPSRA, but in the plaintiff”.

“That contention, I have already found, is completely without merit,” Justice Shankar said.

The court also noted that it was unable to find, in the communications between the parties, any “unequivocal acknowledgment” by HarperCollins of the plaintiff‘s copyright in the screenplay of the film.

“For the aforesaid discussion, the plaintiff has no right whatsoever, in law, to injunct the defendant from novelizing the screenplay of the film ‘Nayak’. Accordingly, prayer (a) in para 34 of the plaint (to injunct the novelization) cannot be granted. It is accordingly, dismissed,” the court said.