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Delhi High Court summons Bear Grylls, Walt Disney, Hotstar, Nat Geo over copyright infringement
The case will now be heard on January 17, 2023, at the Delhi High Court Mediation Center. On February 22, the Court will hear the lawsuit.
British adventurer Bear Grylls has entered into a legal soup after an Indian script writer filed a copyright infringement suit against him with Delhi High Court for his show Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Amit Bansal issued summons to Bear Grylls and entertainment company Warner Brothers Discovery, NBCUniversal Inc, Walt Disney, television network National Geography and over-the-top (OTT) platform Hotstar.
Indian script-writer and producer Arrmann Shharma moved to the High Court and alleged that the Grylls’ show is copied from his original work Aakhri Dum Tak. He told the court that he had conceptualized and scripted the reality show in 2009 while Grylls’ show went on-air in 2013.
As per the copyrighted work developed by Shharma, a TV reality program of 7-8 episodes is to be produced by taking 20 people to the jungle to take up challenges to overcome the natural obstacles in different extreme terrains and sail through for about a month in the jungle without any help. After every task and stunt, a team was supposed to be eliminated and at the end of the show, a winner was supposed to win a huge monetary award, the suit states.
Shharma claimed that he pitched the script to Discovery but the channel rejected it stating that it did not meet its current programming and inventory needs. The lawsuit claimed that Grylls was associated with Discovery at the time he pitched his script to them.
He said although Grylls later quit the channel, he continued to produce the allegedly infringing show for NBC, by claiming it as his own format/show developed with Defendant No.2 (a producer called Tom Shelly).
Shharma continued by saying that the entire show was produced and shot in the exact same way that he had planned it in his original copyrighted work.
Senior Advocate Sanjeev Anand, along with Advocates Imran Ali, Maneesh Saxena, Cherry Gupta, Dhriti Chhabra, Asim Naeem and Manpreet Kaur appeared for the plaintiff. Grylls was represented by lawyer Pravin Anand of Anand & Anand.
The case will now be heard on January 17, 2023, at the Delhi High Court Mediation Center. On February 22, the Court will hear the lawsuit.
India News
Government making sincere attempts to draft laws in Indian languages: PM Modi at International Lawyers Conference
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also stressed on the paramount role lawyers and the judiciary have played in shaping India’s legal system and maintaining law and order.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed the International Lawyers Conference at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi. He expressed his gratitude to the legal fraternity for their substantial contribution to the country’s independence movement and its continued progress.
Speaking at the event, Prime Minister Modi asserted that his government is making sincere attempts to draft laws in a simple manner and in Indian languages to the maximum extent. He added that the legal fraternity plays a very important role in the building of any country. For years, the judiciary and Bar have been the patron of India’s law and order, he continued.
The Prime Minister noted that the Indian government is thinking that law should be produced in two ways: one draft will be in the language that the lawyers are used to and the second draft will be in a language which the country’s common man can understand. He added that the common man should consider the law his own.
Narendra Modi further highlighted the traditional Indian practice of conflict resolution through Panchayats, which, he said, has been ingrained in the country’s culture for decades. He also mentioned that to formalize this age-old system, the government recently enacted the Mediation Act, a move that aims to put forth a regulated structure to the informal conflict resolution process.
Furthermore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also stressed on the paramount role lawyers and the judiciary have played in shaping India’s legal system and maintaining law and order. He voiced that India completed 75 years of independence recently. In the fight for independence, the legal fraternity played a huge role. Many lawyers left their practice to join the independence movement, he continued.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that the International Lawyers’ Conference coincided with multiple historic developments in India, including the passage of the women’s reservation bill and the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission on the south pole of the Moon.
latest Manipur News
Manipur: Mobile internet services to be restored today, says CM N Biren Singh
Mobile internet services have been banned continuously for the past four-and-a-half months
In a major development, Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh announced on Saturday morning that mobile internet services in the state would be restored from Saturday, nearly five months after they were banned in view of the communal violence that broke out in the state.
As far as reports are concerned, the internet services, both mobile internet and broadband, were banned in the northeastern state of Manipur on May 3, the day when the violence first broke out. The ban on internet services was first imposed for a period of five days and continued to be extended for five days at a time, underlining the law-and-order situation in the violence-hit state.
According to The Indian Express report, a member of Chief Minister N Biren Singh’s team stated that the decision has been relayed to the relevant teams and it is likely that mobile internet service will resume within a few hours. While mobile internet services, which is how most people access the internet, have been banned continuously for the past four-and-a-half months, broadband services had been conditionally restored following a government order on July 25.
During that time, while creating provisions for the restoration of broadband services, the order had stated that the suspension of mobile internet services would continue to be in place, mentioning that there are yet apprehensions that the spread of disinformation and false rumours through several social media platforms and sending bulk SMS, for facilitating and or/mobilization of mobs of agitators and demonstrations, which can cause loss of life and/or damage to public/private property.
In the last month, the Manipur High Court had also directed the state government led by N Biren Singh to devise a mechanism for facilitating internet services through mobile phones by whitelisting the mobile numbers on case-to-case basis and in a phase-wise manner.
Latest world news
Canadian PM Trudeau wants to work constructively with India, says Canada shared credible allegations with New Delhi weeks ago
India has repeatedly denied claims of receiving any intel regarding the allegations from Canada before Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday revealing them.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday asserted that Canada shared credible allegations that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar weeks ago, according to reports.
The Canadian Prime MInister added that his country wants to work constructively with India and hope that New Delhi engages with them so that they can get to the bottom of this very serious matter. Meanwhile, India has repeatedly denied claims of receiving any intel regarding the allegations from Canada before Justin Trudeau’s announcement on Monday revealing them.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that there was a potential link between an Indian government agent and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the chief of the banned Khalistan Tiger Force, who was gunned down in Surrey in June. Justin Trudeau made the allegations in the Canadian Parliament.
India has debunked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement deeming the allegations of the Government of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada as both absurd and motivated. Issuing a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that they have seen and rejected the statement made by the Canadian Prime Minister in their Parliament. It added that they also rejected the statement made by their Foreign Minister.
After the allegations by PM Trudeau, the Canadian government expelled a top Indian diplomat. In a tit for tat move, New Delhi also expelled a Canadian diplomat. The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also claimed that the Indian High Commission and consulates are facing security threats in Canada and therefore cannot process visa applications temporarily.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was among India’s most-wanted terrorists, carrying a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. He was fatally gunned down by two unidentified assailants outside a gurdwara in Surrey, a province of British Columbia in Canada, on June 18, according to reports.
