Messrs TAJ COMPANY LIMITED through General Manager vs Haji AHMAD JAN
Civil petitions were filed before the Supreme Court seeking leave to appeal against the judgment of the Lahore High Court, which had dismissed the petitioner's Intra Court Appeal and upheld the dismissal of its writ petition. The petitioner, a publisher of the Holy Qur'an, claimed an exclusive monopoly and copyright over a peculiar manuscript style used for printing the Holy Qur'an, seeking to restrain the respondent from using the same. The core legal questions were whether the petitioner had established a valid, registered copyright in the manuscript and whether any right in the typographical arrangement could be claimed beyond the statutory duration. The Supreme Court held that the petitioner failed to produce any registration document under copyright law, warranting dismissal. Furthermore, under Section 28 of the Copyright Ordinance, 1962, protection for typographical arrangements subsists only for twenty-five years from the calendar year following the first publication, which had already lapsed as the printing was in vogue for decades. Consequently, leave to appeal was refused and the petitions were dismissed.
- Can a publisher claim exclusive copyright over a manuscript in the absence of evidence showing registration under copyright laws?
- What is the statutory duration of copyright protection granted to a publisher for typographical arrangements under Section 28 of the Copyright Ordinance, 1962?
- Does copyright protection in a typographical arrangement continue to subsist where the publication has been in vogue for decades beyond the statutory twenty-five-year period?
- Section 28, Copyright Ordinance, 1962
ORDER
SARDAR MUHAMMAD RAZA KHAN, J.---All these petitions involving common questions of law and fact and common judgment, are taken up together. Taj Company Limited which, according to learned counsel, is named after liquidation as Taj Company (Pvt.) Limited and is so prayed to be substituted, seeks leave to appeal from the judgment dated 7-4-2003, passed by learned Lahore High Court in Intra Court Appeal, whereby, the appeal was dismissed in limine, upholding the judgment dated 11-6-2001 of a learned Judge in chambers, dismissing the writ petition.
2. Taj Company is engaged, inter alia, in the job of printing and publishing the Holy Qur'an. It claims that it has a peculiar manuscript in which the Holy Qur'an is being printed for decades and that no other printer or publisher, like the respondent, had the right to use such manuscript.
3. In order to avail such monopoly in the manuscript and to claim exclusive copyright thereof, it Must have somewhere been got registered under the provisions of copy right Laws. There is no document on record indicative of the fact that the Qur'anic manuscript used by Taj Company had ever been registered in accordance with law. If any such document ever existed in favour of the petitioner and if not placed on record, the petitions, as per law laid down by this Courtin cases of Noor Khan 1984 SCM R 681 and Ch. Abdul Ghani 1988 SCM R 390, are liable to be dismissed on this score alone.
4. Both the forums of the learned High Court have dismissed the claim under section 28 of the Copyright Ordinance, 1962 which for facility of reference is reproduced:-- "'28. Protection of typography and term of protection. -The publisher of an edition of a work shall enjoy the rights to authorize the making, by any photographic or similar process, of copies, intended for sale in commerce, of the typographical arrangement of the edition, and such right shall subsist :until twenty-five years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the edition was first published."
5. It was held that even if the petitioner had any right, in the typographic arrangement of the Editions of the Holy Qur'an, it was to subsist for a period of twenty-five years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the Edition was first published, There is not an iota of evidence on record, which palpably seems to have been suppressed, as to when the script was first published. The matter seems to have been suppressed because such printing has remained in vogue for many decades even beyond twenty-five years. No case of copyright involvement has been made out.
6. The learned counsel for the petitioner red out before us section 18 onward of the Copyright Ordinance, 1962 but failed to convince as to how all these were relevant in his case and for the petitioner's benefit. In the circumstances, no exception could be taken to the conclusion arrived at by the learned High Court. The petitions being merit-less, all are hereby dismissed and leave declined.