SITUATION:

This plaint is drafted taking in hypothetical facts:

A.B was a self published author who used to write and publish articles. Once he wrote an
article on the topic torture under International law for a reputed legal magazine.
M.N, the Defendant in this case had copied his article for a Seminar conducted by a college.
Thus, the plaintiff has filed this suit for copyright infringement against the defendant.

IN THE COURT OF DISTRICT JUDGE OF SOUTH DELHI

Suit No. __________ of 2015

IN THE MATTER OF :
A.B s/o C.D
A-12, AB Street,
New Delhi

........................................ Plaintiff

Vs.
M.N s/o O.P
543, XY Street,
New Delhi

.......................................... Defendant

SUIT FOR COMPENSATION FOR INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT

MOST RESPECT FULLY SHOWETH :
1. The Plaintiff is a self published author, an award winning book writer and also an
accomplished blogger. He has earlier published 8 articles in various legal magazines and
written 3 books on legal issues which have received a lot of acclaim.
2. The Plaintiff is the author of a research article titled Torture under International Law. The
said Article was printed and published in Indias leading Legal Magazine Lawyers Update
in the year 2014. The subject of the Article was International Law.
3. When the Plaintiffs article was being published, the head of the Legal magazine agreed that
the Plaintiff would own his written work, and thus copyright in the written research article.
Thus it was acknowledge through a signature on a form by both, ie, the Plaintiff as well as the
magazine head.( Attached as Exhibit 1)
4. The Defendant is a 5th year student of NSU Law University, Delhi. Recently, the Defendant
took part in an Annual National Seminar conducted by the National Law University, Delhi on

1st May, 2015 on the topic Peace and Security in International Law. Prizes kept for the first
three winners were Rs.30,000 , Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 10,000 respectively. The papers of the
winners would also get published in one of the Indias leading ABS Journal.
5. The Defendant wrote and presented a paper titled The Definition of Torture under
International Law. And thereafter won the 1st prize in the competition, winning Rs. 30,000.
Later on the 10th May, 2015, his research paper was published in the ABS Journal. Thereafter,
he also got an opportunity to represent his college at the International level Seminar on the
same topic with some more additional research on his present article which was to be held
next year, ie, 2016.
6. On seeing the research paper written by the Defendant, published in the ABS Journal, it is
evident that the content of the research paper was stolen from the Plaintiffs article. The said
article authored by the Defendant is a copy of the article of the Plaintiff referred in Paragraph
2 and the publication of the said article is unauthorised. The Act of the Defendant is a flagrant
infringement of Copyright of the Plaintiff. A true and correct copy of the original and the
copied article is attached as (Exhibit 2).
7. By going through both the articles, one could see that approximately 60% of the article
written by the Defendant claiming to be the author of his article was plagiarised from the
Plaintiffs article which was published in one of the leading Law Magazine in the year 2014.
8. The Plaintiff has never been asked for any kind of permission for, nor consented to, use or
copy from the his work and present it further under his authorship.
9. It was on the night of 20th May, 2015, that while surfing on the internet, the Plaintiff came
across the news of the National Seminar and the research article of the winner (Defendant) on
a legal website named LegalMantra.com, which gave him a chance to verify the Plaintiffs
article with his own. The Plaintiff was shocked to see that the Defendants research paper was
a clear imitation of his article.
10. The Plaintiff was allured by the false representation made by the defendant who wilfully and
with malafide intention made false representation about the authorship of the article which
was published on 10th May, 2015 in the ABS Journal. The plaintiff requested the Defendant
through various mails to modify the article and include excerpts with a link of the original
content, or credit the material specifically to him as author or else remove the plagiarised
material immediately. (Attached as exhibit 3)
11. The Defendant did not responded to the Plaintiffs e-mail. Finding no alternative, the Plaintiff
sent a notice of demand dated 01.06.2015 to the Defendant by the way of Regd. Post
( attached as Exhibit 3).The notice was duly received by the Defendant. But he failed to
comply by the notice and sent a negative reply of the same, hence present suit.
12. That the cause of action of this suit arose against the defendants within the jurisdiction of this
Hon'ble Court firstly when the defendant participated in the National Seminar at NLU, Delhi
on 1st May, 2015 and he presented the research paper which infringed the copyright work of
the Plaintiff. It again arose on 10th May, 2015, when the Defendants research paper was
published in one of the Indias leading journal, ABS Journal, authored under his name. It
further arose when the Defendant took all the credit and recognition for the plagiarised article
and was selected for the International Seminar for the same next year.

13. The Part of the cause of action arose at Delhi. The paper presentation at the National Seminar
was held at NLU, Delhi. The notice sent to the Defendant was at Delhi. The reply of the
notice was also received at Delhi, hence this Honble Court has jurisdiction to entertain and
adjudicate the matter.
14. The Plaintiff has suffered irreparable injury to his reputation and recognition and unless the
Honble court restrains the Defendant from further use of the infringed copyright article, the
Plaintiff will continue to suffer injury, the amount of which cannot be counted and which has
no adequate remedy.
15. For purposes of court fees and jurisdiction, value of suit is Rs. ......... on which court fees has
been paid and hence this Court have jurisdiction in allowing, trying and deciding this suit.
PRAYER
The plaintiff hence prays for:
(a) Permanent injunction that prohibits the Defendant any further use of the work that
infringes his copyright.
(b) An award of monetary damages sufficient to compensate Plaintiff for the injuries suffered
as a result of Defendants malafide conduct;
(c) A Decree for compensation of the profits earned by Defendant by copyright infringement
of the Plaintiffs work.
(d) Cost of the suit be also awarded in favour of the Plaintiff and against the Defendant; and
(e) Such other and further order(s) as this Honble Court may deem fit and proper in the
circumstances of the case may also be passed.

(Signature of the Plaintiff)

Place :.........................
Date :..........................
(XYZ Advocate)
VERIFICATION
I, ..............., do hereby solemnly verify that the contents from para 1 to 11 are correct and true to the
best of my knowledge and contents from para 12 to 15 are based on legal advice, which I believe to be
correct. Affirmed at Indore this 4th Day of September 2009.

(Signature)
Plaintiff