- Friday, March 07, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Less than two weeks after former Indian National Congress president Rahul Gandhi, one of India’s top opposition leaders, welcomed the change of guard at Twitter saying hoped that the micro-blogging site would better tackle fake news and hate speeches under its new owner Elon Musk, his party has faced adversity at home.
A court in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Monday (7) asked Twitter to temporarily block handles of the party and its ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (Unite India March) campaign on grounds of flouting copyright norms.
It has been reported that the court gave its order after a music label from the city, MRT Music, accused the grand-old party of using songs from blockbuster southern film ‘KGF-2’ in one of the videos of the yatra that featured Gandhi, who has been part of the months-long event from the first day.
The music company said that it had spent huge money to acquire the rights of the songs in KGF-2 in Hindi.
The court said in its order that the music label specifically produced a compact disc showing the side-by-side file, i.e., the original version of the copyrighted work along with the version which is illegally synchronised, India Today reported.
“These prima facie materials available before this court at this stage establishes that if same is encouraged plaintiff who is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums etc., will be put to irreparable injury and further same leads to encouraging the piracy at large (sic),” the court said.
The court asked Twitter to block the Twitter handles of the Congress and ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
The music company had also filed a case against three Congress leaders — Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh, and Supriya Shrinate — accusing them of infringement of copyrights, the report added.
“These unlawful actions committed by a national political party reflects their blatant disregard to the rule of law and the rights of private individuals and entities while they are conducting this Bharath Jodo Yatra to seek an opportunity to govern the country and frame legislation for protecting the rights of the common man and businesses,” a statement released by the company said.
