The Delhi High Court on Wednesday allowed A.R. Rahman’s appeal and set aside a single-judge ruling that had held his Ponniyin Selvan 2 track “Veera Raja Veera” to be identical to “Shiva Stuti,” attributed to the junior Dagar brothers, Ustad Nasir Zahiruddin Dagar and Ustad Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar.

A Division Bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla held that the single judge (Justice Prathiba M Singh) erred in presuming authorship from performance. “If we hold that the person who renders the composition is the composer, we would have to rewrite the definition of ‘composer’ in the Copyright Act,” the Bench said, clarifying that rendition cannot, by itself, establish authorship. On this threshold ground, the Bench allowed the appeal without entering the infringement analysis

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