The Supreme Court of India stayed a ruling reviving an injunction against Saregama India Limited in its copyright dispute with Sreedevi Video Corporation over audio rights of seven films, including Salangai Oli and Sankara Bharanam classics.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has put on hold a decision that had reinstated an injunction claim against Saregama India Limited in its long-running copyright battle with Sreedevi Video Corporation over music from several South Indian films, including classics such as the Kamal Haasan-starrer Salangai Oli and Shankarabaranam.
The dispute concerns competing assertions of ownership of the audio copyrights in the sound recordings of seven films: Salangai Oli, Saagara Sangamam (Telugu), Sankara Bharanam, Seetha Kokila Chiluka, Sithara, Saagara Sangamam (Malayalam) and Thayaramma Bangariah.
A Bench comprising Justices Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan stayed the Madras High Court’s November 2025 order that had revived the suit on certain limited questions.
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Sreedevi Video Corporation originally filed a commercial suit in 2014 seeking a declaration that it was the absolute owner of the audio copyrights in the sound recordings of these seven films, relying on two assignment agreements dated July 2008 with Poornodaya Movie Creations and Poornodaya Art Creations. It also sought a permanent injunction preventing Saregama from exploiting the recordings.
Saregama contested the suit, asserting that the copyrights had already been assigned decades earlier. The company says agreements executed in 1978 and 1979 transferred recording and mechanical reproduction rights in the films to Sea Records for a 60-year term, and those rights were subsequently assigned to Saregama (then Gramophone Company of India Ltd.) in 2000 for Rs 1.10 crore in perpetuity. Saregama further relied on a 2010 cease-and-desist notice asserting its copyright and disputing Sreedevi’s claim.
A Single Judge of the Madras High Court dismissed Sreedevi’s suit in 2022, finding the claim for a declaration of copyright ownership barred by limitation because the right to sue had arisen in 2010 but the suit was filed only in 2014 beyond the three-year limitation period.
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A Division Bench agreed on appeal that the claim for declaration of title to the sound recordings was time-barred. However, it permitted the case to move forward on the narrower question of whether an injunction could still be granted against Saregama, thereby reviving the suit to that limited extent.
Before the Supreme Court, Saregama argued that the Division Bench erred by separating the injunction claim from the declaratory relief. It maintained that the suit was essentially a title dispute over copyright ownership and that, once the declaration of ownership was held to be barred by limitation, Sreedevi could not pursue an injunction, which is consequential relief dependent on proving title.
Saregama contended that where title is in dispute, an injunction cannot be granted without first determining ownership. Allowing the injunction to proceed, it argued, would permit Sreedevi to “indirectly” do what it could not do “directly” namely, establish title to the copyrights despite the declaration claim being time-barred, argued Saregama.
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The company added that the Division Bench had itself acknowledged the declaration claim was time-barred, yet it allowed the injunction issue to continue by drawing an artificial distinction between dismissal on merits and dismissal on limitation. According to the plea, such a distinction is legally untenable because, once the right to seek a title declaration has lapsed by limitation, no enforceable right remains to seek an injunction.
Saregama also argued that the 2008 assignment relied upon by Sreedevi was invalid, since the assignors had already transferred the rights decades earlier to Saregama’s predecessor and thus lacked authority to assign the same copyrights again. It submitted that permitting the injunction claim to proceed would effectively reopen the title question and relitigate an issue barred by limitation.
The Supreme Court’s stay suspends the High Court order reviving the injunction claim and halts further proceedings in the matter for now.
The case will be listed again in April 2026.
Saregama was represented by Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, assisted by Advocates Aparajitha Vishwanath, Vishnu Sharma AS, Lzafeer Ahmad, Ribhav Pande, Jeevan Hari and Saksham Dhingra.
Case Title: Saregama v. Sreedevi Video Corporation
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