Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 3, 2022 at 19:30 IST
Observing that nobody can claim copyright on the teachings that are written in the Holy Books Quran and Hadees or other Islamic books, a Delhi Court dismissed a lawsuit for copyright infringement filed over the publication of a book named “Islamic Studies” with a cost of Rs. 50,000.
District Judge (Commercial) Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal of Tis Hazari Courts said:
“Some contents are bound to be similar as teaching given in the Holy Books Quran and Hadees and other religious text related to Islam religion are bound to be same in all books which are about teaching on Islam. In my view, nobody can have copyright on these teachings which are written in the Holy Books Quran and Hadees or other Islamic books.”
Islamic Book Service (P) Ltd., a publisher and exporter of Islamic books located in the city’s Daryaganj, brought the lawsuit, asserting that Maulvi Abdul Aziz, as the owner and author of the literary work titled “Islami Taleemat” series of books part I to VIII, had unconditionally assigned its copyright to the company and also given over the work’s manuscript against consideration.
According to the lawsuit, the publishing “Studies in Islam” for grades one through eight exclusively and continuously since 1992, and a large number of copies are sold both domestically and overseas.
The plaintiff argued that the defendant infringed its copyrights by publishing the book “Islamic Studies“.
A permanent and mandatory injunction was sought against the defendant to prevent it from publishing, selling, and distributing the alleged books on the grounds that it was attempting to cheat the purchasers by leading them to believe they were purchasing the genuine books published by the plaintiff and written by Maulvi Abdul Aziz.
The Court held that the plaintiff company lacked locus standi to bring a lawsuit alleging that the defendant had infringed its copyright by using “Islamic Studies Grade 1 to Grade VIII” without a specific assignment of the copyright in its favour.
Accordingly, the Court held that the plaintiff company “miserably failed” to establish any copyright over the book “Islamic Studies” or any copyright infringement by the defendant’s publication of the plaintiff’s book.