YouTuber Mohak Mangal urges Delhi High Court to transfer ANI’s copyright case from Patiala House, citing overlapping issues. Justice Bhambhani questions if single bench can hear the plea.
New Delhi: On July 10, YouTuber Mohak Mangal approached the Delhi High Court, requesting the transfer of a copyright and trademark infringement case filed against him by Asian News International (ANI) from the Patiala House Court to the Delhi High Court itself.
The petition came up for hearing before Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, who expressed doubt over whether he, as a single judge, had the power to entertain this kind of request.
Justice Bhambhani asked,
“Jurisdiction issue. Can I even entertain this?… You (Mangal) are asking that the Patiala House suit be brought here but you’ve to go before a DB,”
where DB refers to the Division Bench of the court.
This raised a key legal issue regarding which bench has the power under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 to decide such transfer applications.
ANI’s lawyer, Advocate Siddhant Kumar, referred to Section 15(5) of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, arguing that the power to hear the petition rests with the commercial appellate division of the High Court and not a single judge. According to him, the transfer plea was not maintainable before a single judge.
He also highlighted that the case in Patiala House Court is different from the one filed in the High Court, even though both are against Mohak Mangal.
He said the lower court case is based on 10 different videos in which copyright and trademark violations are alleged.
On the other hand, the High Court case focuses only on one video titled “Dear ANI”, and that one deals mainly with defamation and disparagement.
On the opposite side, Mangal’s lawyer, Advocate Nakul Gandhi, argued that there is a lot of similarity between the two cases.
He said that six out of the ten videos mentioned in the Patiala House case are already part of the case ANI filed earlier in the High Court.
He said that the trademark violations mentioned in both cases are based on the same marks, and because of this, it would make sense to combine both cases and hear them together.
He said that having two different courts deal with the same issues will waste time and resources and lead to confusion.
According to him, having the High Court deal with both cases will help in maintaining judicial consistency.
Taking note of the legal arguments, Justice Bhambhani told Mangal’s lawyer to submit legal judgments that support the idea that a single judge can hear this kind of transfer petition. The court said it would hear the case again on July 16.
Earlier, ANI had filed a case in the Delhi High Court against Mohak Mangal, comedian Kunal Kamra, AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair, and some other unnamed persons.
The allegation was that all of them had shared a video titled “Dear ANI” on X (earlier called Twitter) and thereby increased the reach of defamatory content.
Following this, on May 29, Mohak Mangal agreed to remove certain parts of his YouTube video that ANI had objected to.
But on June 2, ANI filed another case—this time in the Patiala House Court—against ten of Mangal’s videos, claiming that they violated copyright and trademark laws.
Background of the Case
The legal dispute began when Asian News International (ANI) filed a suit before the Delhi High Court against YouTuber Mohak Mangal, along with comedian Kunal Kamra, AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair, and others.
ANI alleged that a video titled “Dear ANI” shared by the defendants on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) contained defamatory and disparaging content, and also violated trademark rights. Following this, Mohak Mangal agreed to remove certain portions of the video after ANI raised objections.
Subsequently, on June 2, ANI filed a separate copyright and trademark infringement suit before the Patiala House Court, targeting ten of Mangal’s videos.
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