Diverging John Doe orders in relation to blocking URLs

The Bombay High Court (‘Bombay HC’) recently passed a number of orders dated June 16, 2016,[1] July 1, 2016[2] and July 22, 2016[3] that have narrowed down the scope of John Doe orders. The Bombay HC refused to pass orders that would result in wholesale blocking of hundreds of websites that allegedly offered and hosted illicit links to the movies ‘Udta Punjab’, ‘Great Grand Masti’ and ‘Dishoom’. The Bombay HC held that an order to block entire website without demonstrating that the entire website contains infringing material cannot be granted and that specific uniform resource locators (‘URL’) containing infringing material must be identified and established.

On the other hand, in the case of Department of Electronics and Information Technology v. Star India Private Limited,[4] a division bench of the Delhi High Court (‘Delhi HC’), by its judgement dated July 29, 2016, upheld a sweeping John Doe order for blocking 73 websites on the grounds that if only a single URL is blocked, the same website can very easily provide access to the blocked content through another URL.

[1]     Balaji Motion Picture Limited & Anr. v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. & 49 Ors., Notice of Motion (L) No. 1783 of 2016 in Suit (L) No. 633 of 2016.

[2]     Balaji Motion Pictures Ltd. & Anr. v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. & Ors., Notice of Motion (L) No. 1940 of 2016 in Suit (L) No. 694 of 2016.

[3]     Eros International Media Ltd. and Anr. v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited & Or., Notice of Motion (L) No. 2147 of 2016 in Suit (L) No. 751 of 2016.

[4]     Department of Electronics and Information Technology v. Star India Private Limited, R.P.131/2016 in FAO (OS) 57/2015.