Delhi High Court: In a suit filed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (‘ICAI’), plaintiff 1, and other chartered accountants (plaintiffs 2-4), seeking an ad interim injunction against Netflix India Services LLP (‘Netflix’), the defendant, for staying release of the series ‘Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper’ (‘series’), alleging that the trailer of the series had portrayed the profession of chartered accountancy in India in a scandalous and derogatory manner, Navin Chawla, J., refused to grant interim stay on the release of the series and said that there was nothing derogatory in the trailer alluding to the profession of chartered accountancy. The Court remarked, “the artistic expression, even in form of a commercial speech, cannot be curtailed on basis of an oversensitive approach.”
The ICAI is a statutory body established by the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, that regulates the profession of chartered accountancy in India. Plaintiffs 2-4 are chartered accountants by profession and members of ICAI. Plaintiff 4 recently cleared the Chartered Accountancy Examination held in May 2024 and was a rank holder.
The plaintiffs were aggrieved by the trailer of the series series, that was released on 10-07-2024, announcing its streaming on Netflix from 18-07-2024. The plaintiffs claimed that the trailer of the series portrays the profession of chartered accountancy in a vulgar and derogatory light, which was illegal and was violative of the Constitutional rights of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs submitted that the ICAI was in receipt of emails objecting to the scandalous content of the trailer that contained unwarranted innuendos to the profession. It was further alleged by plaintiffs that reference to the services rendered by chartered accountants as ‘debit and credit with reference to sexual services offered’ in the trailer of the series was derogatory to the profession, and that such a depiction of the profession of the profession was bound to defame the professionals.
It was contended by Netflix that the series was completely fictional and contained a disclaimer to that effect at the start of the series which clearly indicated that the series had no reference to any individual or any real person dead or alive. Netflix submitted that it would also add a disclaimer in the series that would specifically mention that reference had not been made to any profession.
Upon hearing both parties and having watched the trailer to the series, the Court said that it did not find the trailer to be referring to the profession of chartered accountancy in any manner. The Court said it merely seemed like the main character of the series had been portrayed as a topper in the Chartered Accountancy Examination and it was neither intended nor can be alleged to be derogatory to the profession of chartered accountancy or the toppers rank holders in the examination conducted by ICAI.
The Court said that artistic expression, even in form of commercial speech, could not be curtailed based on an oversensitive approach. The Court referred to Ashutosh Dubey v. Netflix, 2020 SCC OnLine Del 625 wherein it had been observed that the very essence of democracy is that a creative artist is given the liberty to project the picture of the society in a manner he perceives.
The Court, therefore, refused to grant ad interim injunction at this stage due to the lack of any prima facie case in favour of the plaintiffs.
[ICAI v. Netflix Entertainment Services India LLP, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 5015, decided on 16-07-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Advocate for Plaintiffs: Amarjit Singh Chandhiok, Sr. Adv., Pooja M. Saigal, Yatin Dua, Kaveri Rawal, Deepti Bhardwaj, Advocates
Advocates for Defendants: Sandeep Sethi, Sr. Adv., Saikrishna Rajagopal, Thomas George, Sneha Jain, Tanvi Sinha, Devvrat Joshi, Angad S. Makkar, Navankur Pathak, Hiren Kamod, Shrishti Talukdar, Ami Desai, Surekha, Riddhi, Prashansa Singh, Sachin Gupta, Ajay Kumar, Rohit Pradhan, Manan Mondal, Advocates
