Amarnath Sehgal

v.
Union of India
Delhi High Court, 2005
 Section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957
Author’s special rights- (1) Independently of the author's copyright and even after the assignment
either wholly or partially of the said copyright, the author of a work shall have the right-
(a) to claim authorship of the work; and
(b) to restrain or claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation, modification or other act in
relation to the said work which is done before the expiration of the term of copyright if such
distortion, mutilation, modification or other act would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation:
Provided that the author shall not have any right to restrain or claim damages in respect of any
adaptation of a computer programme to which clause (aa) of sub-section (1) of section 52 applies.
Explanation.- Failure to display a work or to display it to the satisfaction of the author shall not be
deemed to be an infringement of the rights conferred by this section.
(2) The right conferred upon an author of a work by sub-section (1), other than the right to claim
authorship of the work, may be exercised by the legal representatives of the author.
 Background
In 1957, the Ministry of Works, Housing and Supplies commissioned the
plaintiff, Amarnath Sehgal, a renowned sculptor, to design a mural for Vigyan
Bhawan. Completed in 1962, the 140 feet by 40 feet bronze mural occupied
one of the walls in the lobby till 1979. During renovation, the mural was
pulled down and consigned to the storehouse of the Union without notice to
the plaintiff or his consent or authorisation. In the process of moving and
storage, the mural was damaged and some pieces including the portion of the
work where the name of the author was inscribed disappeared. When in the
following years despite several representation to the Government no action
was taken, he filed a case at the Delhi High Court seeking a permanent
injunction against further distortion and mutilation of the mural, and
damages for injury and loss of reputation.
An interim injunction order was issued against the Defendants restraining
them from causing any further loss and injury to the plaintiffs mural or
doing anything prejudicial to his reputation.
The Defendants instead of filing their written statement made an
application under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 seeking stay of
proceedings in the suit to facilitate reference of disputes to arbitration for
adjudication in view of the arbitration agreement between the parties and
for vacation of ad interim injunction granted on May 29, 1992. The
application was dismissed.
 Defendants’ Arguments and the Issues Framed
Union of India defended the suit by urging that it was the owner of the
mural and had the right to consign the same to a store room. The Plaintiff
was stated to have been paid ample consideration for the work.
Defence of limitation was also taken as the suit had been filed 13 years after
the cause of action (removal of the mural) had arisen.
• Whether the suit was barred by limitation?
• Whether the plaintiff had rights under Section 57 of the Copyright
Act,1957 although the copyright in the same had been vested in the
Defendant?
• Whether the defendant had violated the plaintiff ’s rights under Section 57
of the Act?
• Whether the plaintiff had suffered any damage?
 Decision of the Court
Moral Rights
Moral rights of the author are the soul of his works. The author has a right to
preserve, protect and nurture his creations through his moral rights.
When a work of art or a literary work is created, it entailed four main rights-
i. Paternity Right/attribution right in the work, i.e. the right to have his name
on the work.
ii. Right to disseminate his work.
iii. Right to integrity and to maintain purity in the work.
iv. Right of retraction, i.e., to withdraw one’s work from publication.
• Except for the right of dissemination which perhaps is guided by
commercial considerations, the other three rights originate from the fact
that a creative author and his work enjoy a privileged relationship and thus
they can be called the author’s moral rights.
• Under the Berne Convention the right to assert authorship in a work
includes a right to object to distortion, mutilation or modification in a
work, if it is prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the author and
provided there was proof of a negative impact on the author’s reputation.
• Significantly, these rights continue to be vested in the author even after he
has parted with his economic rights in his work.
• At par with the Berne Convention, section 57 too protects the right to
attribution and the integrity right of the author in case of
damage/mutilation or any other act that prejudicially affects his reputation.
The Question of Damage/Mutilation
• Destruction is an extreme form of mutilation. It can prejudice an author’s
reputation by reducing the volume of his creative corpus. Here, the
Plaintiff had suffered a loss of reputation, honour and mental injury as his
creative effort was mutilated, destroyed and dismembered in fragments
which could not be put together even in parts.
• There was a violation of the integrity of the work in relation to the
cultural heritage of the nation. Such creative works are significant for the
nation, as they maintain the historical truth and cultural knowledge.
Therefore, it is essential to make sure that they remained unharmed and
preserved.
Held
• A mandatory injunction directing the defendants to return the remnants of
the mural to the Plaintiff.
• All rights in the mural would vest in the Plaintiff.
• The Plaintiff would have an absolute right to recreate the mural at any
place and would have the right to sell the same.