Supreme Court notice on BBC's plea against contempt proceedings in High Court for showing 'Wild Karnataka' documentary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea filed by BBC challenging the contempt proceedings initiated by the Karnataka High Court against its OTT platform for showing documentary Wild Karnataka despite a restraining order.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra issued notice on BBC's plea and tagged the matter with a similar petition filed by Netflix.

The top court had on January 25, 2024 stayed the contempt proceedings initiated by the Karnataka High Court against Netflix for showing the documentary.

Earlier, the high court had framed civil contempt charges against various broadcasters including BBC, Discovery and Netflix in a case where the filmmakers and broadcasters were accused of disobeying a 2021 interim order of the court regarding the release and telecast of the documentary. The interim order was passed by the high court on June 29, 2021 on the plea of Ravindra N Redkar and Ullash Kumar.

It had prohibited the filmmakers and platforms involved from engaging in any use, publication, reproduction, broadcasting, telecasting, marketing, selling, or dealing with the film and its raw footage obtained from the forest department.

As per the details of the case, Mudskipper Labs and ITV Studios Global had approached Kalyan Varma and Amoghavarsha to film a documentary in 2014.

After signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) to shoot a documentary, the accused allegedly used the services of the KFD like transport and shooting permissions without paying any charges.

It was alleged in the high court that necessary permission for waiving the fees was not obtained.

The MoU vested the copyrights of the documentary and raw footage in the KFD but the filmmakers brought Icon Films of England and Wales on board without the former's knowledge, the plea before the high court said.

The companies then entered into agreements with BBC, Discovery and Netflix to broadcast them though the KFD had specified the film would not be commercially used. The film was also released in theatres.

The original footage shot was of 400 hours and the KFD had copyright over all the raw footage, the petitioners/complainants claimed.

The HC passed an interim order on June 29, 2021 on the petition forbidding all the respondents from publishing or telecasting the film.

However, the film was released in theatres and telecast on broadcaster platforms. The complainants then filed the contempt petition before the HC. The original petition is still pending before the high court.

On January 17, the respondents submitted they are willing to pay compensation to the KFD.

The BBC offered Rs 3.5 lakh as compensation and Netflix Rs 4.5 lakh.

Icon Films and Discovery also offered Rs 3.5 lakh each to the Tiger Conservation Foundation. The filmmakers and other accused also promised to pay compensation.

The high court, however, agreed with the advocate of the petitioners that the 'apology appears to be sham in the light of the compensation offered by the accused,' and went ahead with the framing of charges.