The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : `State legislature not competent to enact law on copyright'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

`State legislature not competent to enact law on copyright'

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, APRIL 5. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court today witnessed heated arguments on the validity of an amendment made to the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities Act, incorporating `video pirates' among other offenders.

Arguing for a habeas corpus petition against the detention of a person branded as a `video pirate' in Tiruchi, senior counsel, K.M. Vijayan, contended that the State legislature was not competent to enact a law concerning copyrights, since it was an exclusive Central subject.

A `video pirate' was defined under the Act as "a person who commits or attempts to commit or abets the commission of offences of infringement of copyright in relation to a cinematograph film or a record embodying any part of sound track associated with the film, punishable under the Copy Right Act, 1957 (Central Act)."

Pointing out that the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution distinguished between the subject matter of laws that could be enacted by Parliament and State legislatures, drawing reference to three different lists, Union List, State List and Concurrent List, the senior counsel said copyright fell under Entry 49 of the Union List and hence only Parliament was vested with the right to enact a law on the subject.

"For example, income-tax is a Central subject. Can the State enact a law to detain a person for non-payment of income-tax?" Mr. Vijayan questioned.

The Preventive Detention Act, amended on December 9 last, was called Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Forest Offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video Pirates Act. The Act enables the District Collector or a Commissioner of Police to detain an offender for a maximum period of one year, extended every three months.

The senior counsel also wondered how the activities of video pirates could be termed as prejudicial to maintenance of public order. "Public order has been defined by the Supreme Court time and again as breach of public peace and tranquillity. At the most, a few people from the cinema industry could be affected by the activities of a video pirate, but for that the question of disturbing public order does not arise at all."

Replying to the contentions raised by the other side, Advocate General, N.R. Chandran, said an identical question of law was decided by the High Court in 1984 with regard to the powers of the State in enacting a law on censor certification for running video libraries.

"Originally, there was an argument that there was no entry called `video' (in the Seventh Schedule). But we argued that video will get into cinema."

On the other point raised by the counsel for the petitioner, the Advocate General said that video piracy would very much affect public order since the pirates were not only creating copies of latest movies but were also producing and selling pornographic films, which polluted the minds of youngsters and students.

"This activity reaches the people in an unpleasant manner and it not only affected the revenue of the State and the cinema industry but also the society at large," he added.

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