Hearing on 'Time Bomb' adjourned to27June

MUMBAI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday adjourned till Monday, 27 June, the hearing of the case filed by Twentieth Century Fox, seeking an injunction against Zee TV telecasting its Rs 110 million thriller Time Bomb.

The US producer, in a suit filed on 17 June, had alleged that the Zee serial has copied the concept of its ongoing TV serial 24.

Justice Anil Kumar today heard the arguments of RK Anand for Twentieth Century Fox and Arun Jaitley for Zee Telefilms. Anand urged the Court to seek Time Bomb CDs for a comparative study of the two serials.

Anand submitted that Zee Telefilms is required to produce all the CDs of its serial shot so far to the court to verify whether it had copied the script, storyline and the characterisation of the serial 24 as alleged in the lawsuit.

Responding to the submission, justice Kumar said he would pass an appropriate order on the plea on the next hearing on 27 June.

Arguing for the Indian broadcasting network today, Jaitley tried to counter the two main arguments Twentieth Century Fox had presented. Fox had made the copyright infringement allegations against Time Bomb based on two factors: Firstly, the company argued that Time Bomb inherited 24's real time format. It said, like 24, Time Bomb was also following the screen time. The second one was on the split-screen technology which Time Bomb used. Twentieth Century Fox had argued that the copyright to the creative innovation belonged to the company, since it was the first one to launch such a technique.

"Jaitley defended Time Bomb's using of such techniques by arguing that, these kind of innovations are nobody's monopoly since they are enabled and developed by the advancement of technology. Since it is part of the technology, it is in the public domain," Zee Telefilms' counsel Maninder Singh told indiantelevision.com.

Jaitley also brought to the court's attention to various shows that make use of the same innovations. He picked up examples in Sony's thriller CID Special Bureau, which uses the splitscreen technique, various news and current affairs shows and many movies. According to Singh, Time Bomb's writer-producer-director Ketan Mehta has already used this technique in his 1985 movie Mirch Masala.

During the hearing, the Zee counsel also expressed his client's willingness to produce the CDs/DVDs of these shows for the court to have a look at. Jaitley will continue his arguments on 27 June. With the court refusing to order an injunction against the launch, Time Bomb debuted on Zee TV on 20 June.