Allahabad HC Grants Relief To Flipkart In A Case Over Sale Of Products In Violation Of Copyright Act

In relief to Flipkart Internet Private Limited and its officials, the Allahabad High Court issued an order to stay any coercive against the company officials till the next date of hearing in a case related to the sale of counterfeit products on the company's website. 

The bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rajnish Kumar also issued notices to State of Uttar Pradesh and other respondents and asked them to file a counter affidavit in the matter within six weeks. 

Essentially, the case against Flipkart is that it is selling products (articles/books) in violation of the Copyright Act, 1957, however, moving to the Court, it argued that for the violation of the Act, the case can at best be maintainable against the actual publisher and not against Flipkart, which is an intermediary.

The FIR has been registered against its officials under Sections 420, 465, 467, 34 IPC & Section 51(a)(i), 51(b)(ii) of Copyright Act, 1957.

Advocates Akshay Mohiley, and Shishir Tandon appeared on the behalf of Flipkart and argued that as per the Terms of Use of the e-commerce site, intellectual property rights have to be adhered and complied to by all the sellers/visitors/users.

Furthermore, it was submitted that Flipkart was in compliance with the code of due diligence by way of Terms of Use and other policy publications on its platform as well as the IT Act and that it even delisted the sellers who are seeking products in violation of the Copyright act.

The petitioner also claimed the protection of Section 79 of the Information Technology Act by submitting that lodgement of the First Information Report against the petitioner is an abuse of the process of law.

As per Section 79 of The Information Technology Act, 2000, any social media intermediary can not be made liable for legal action on account of any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.

In view of this, after hearing the matter at length, the High Court stayed the arrest of the Flipkart officials.

Case title - M/S Flipkart Internet Private Limited v. State Of U.P. And 2 Others

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