The Supreme Court has rejected Netflix’s plea against a Bihar court’s order asking it to not use Subrata Roy’s in its show ‘Bad Boy Billionaires’, reported PTI. Further, the SC has given liberty to Netflix to move Patna High Court in order to challenge the Bihar court’s decision.
THE BACKGROUND
Previously, The Economic Times quoted “people with direct knowledge of the matter” and reported that Netflix will file a writ petition on Wednesday, 2 September, seeking vacation of the stay order.
According to ET, the stay order filed by the Bihar court read:
“This court is of the considered view that the plaintiff (Subrata Roy) has qualified tripartite test of prime facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable loss and grant of ad interim injunction in its favour as such the defendants including their employees, directors, officers, associates or any person or entity acting on their behalf or under their authority are restrained from releasing, transmitting, distributing, exhibiting, performing or communicating to the public by any means or technology by audio or video performance of the impugned trailer of Bad Boy Billionaires using the name of Subrata Roy till the appearance of the defendant and filing show cause.”
It further stated that “the order is interim in nature and the same shall be decided on merits after hearing both the parties”.
The Delhi High Court, on the other hand, has rejected absconding diamond merchant Mehul Choksi’s plea seeking a stay on the transmission of the show with his name, stating that “freedom of speech and expression is cardinal and should be given full play”.
According to Roy, a London-based director had met him in Lucknow 2019 and told him that they wanted to make a web feature on his life, titled “Billionaires”.
Hyderabad Court Responds to Ramalinga Raju’s Plea
Meanwhile, on a petition by B Ramalinga Raju, who was convicted in the Satyam scam, a Hyderabad civil court on Tuesday, 1 September, passed a restraining injunction to prevent Netflix from releasing ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’.
‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’ is a Netflix documentary show based on the lives of four Indian billionaires accused of financial fraud. These four billionaires are Vijay Mallya, Subrata Roy, Nirav Modi and Ramalinga Raju.
B Ramalinga Raju, founder of Satyam Computer Services, was convicted for his role in the scam, by a trial court in Hyderabad and awarded seven years imprisonment, reported The Times of India.
In his plea seeking the restraining injunction, Raju, who has been out on bail since 2018, alleged that the show will be violative of his privacy, reported TNM.
Further, Raju reportedly alleged that the show contained half-truths and seemed to have been designed to tarnish his reputation. According to TOI, senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy, arguing for Raju, said that the case is pending appeal at sessions court, and therefore, the makers of the show cannot declare Raju as guilty and should not be allowed to use words like “greed”, “fraud” and “cooking of books”. The counsel also pointed out that such defamatory remarks cannot be made against Raju while the matter is sub judice.
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