Why has Bengaluru court ordered to block Congress' Twitter account amid Bharat Jodo Yatra

A Bengaluru court has ordered Twitter to temporarily block the accounts of Congress and its Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign over a copyright case against the party. The social networking platform has also been ordered to remove three links from its platform.

What is the case:

Bangalore-based record label MRT Music had last Friday filed a case against three Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, for allegedly using music from the superhit Kannada film KGF-2, in violation of the copyright law, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. 

"An entity such as the INC has to set an example for the Indian citizens, however in this scenario, it itself is violating the laws of the land and infringing our copyright and intellectual property rights, which we have acquired through huge investments. This act on the part of INC sends a completely wrong signal to the Indian public and is completely contrary to the efforts of safeguarding our copyrights. This grave infringement will be challenged by us to the fullest effort," M Naveen Kumar, who manages MRT music, had said. 

Further, MRT Music's counsel Narasimhan Sampath had noted: "The INC has created a video by unlawfully downloading and synchronising and broadcasting the songs pertaining to the movie KGF - Chapter 2 in Hindi and portraying it to be owned by the INC. They have also used a logo namely "Bharath Jodo Yatra" in the said video and have broadcasted the same on their official social media handles."

Based on this, the police registered an FIR in Crime No. 362/2022 for offences punishable under sections 403, 465 and 120B r/w Section 34 of the IPC and under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and under Section 63 of the Copyrights Act, 1957.

What the court said:

Taking into account the material evidence submitted, the court noted that prima facie materials available at this stage, if established, will cause irreparable damage to the plaintiff and also encourage piracy.

The court issued an ex-parte injunction that restrains the defendants from unauthorisedly and illegally using the copyrighted work belonging to the plaintiff till the next date of hearing.

How Congress responded:

The party took to Twitter to say that it is not aware of the court proceedings and has not got any copy of the order.

"We have read on social media about an adverse order from a Bengaluru court against INC and BJY SM handles. We were neither made aware of nor present at court proceedings. No copy of the order has been received. We are pursuing all the legal remedies at our disposal," the Congress party tweeted.