A suit was filed by Star India Private Ltd. against the Jackstremas.com and Ors. alleging that the defendant websites are carrying illegal and unlawful activities and the same should be blocked. The suit was related to the broadcasting of Dream 11 India Premier League 2020. In this suit, an interim injunction application was filed by the plaintiff.
Advocates SaikrishnaRajgopal, Sidharth Chopra, Yatinder Garg, and Vivek Ayyagari, presented on the behalf of petitioners contended that whenever there is a sporting event the defendant websites become alive. The said website's servers are located outside India and when the match starts it begins streaming.
The petitioner argued that during this pandemic, the economy has fallen at a very high rate which has affected the broadcasting industry as it was unable to operate advertising revenue. Due to this, it became critical for the plaintiffs to be able to make up in terms of a subscription, and to retain viewership, exclusivity in broadcasting was necessary. They further argued that exclusive broadcasting rights are bought for high considerations therefore to be able to broadcast such matches exclusively is the only avenue of monetizing these rights.
The Delhi High Court was satisfied on hearing the arguments made by the plaintiff and passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction against the said defendant websites. The court headed by Justice Mukta Gupta, on Wednesday, restrained the defendant's websites from streaming, hosting, communicating, or making available for viewing or download in any manner without authorization of Dream 11 Indian Premier League 2020 and contents related to it. Access to the websites was also asked to block within 72 hours of the receipt order of the court. The court was of the view that if the injunction was not granted then the plaintiff was likely to suffer irreparable loss.
