Supreme Court Refuses To Interfere With Madras HC Ruling That Contempt Can't Enforce Unquantified Royalty
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with a Madras High Court ruling that contempt proceedings were not maintainable where royalty claims had not been quantified, holding that non-payment of an unascertained amount cannot amount to willful disobedience.
Dismissing the Special Leave Petitions filed by the South India Music Companies Association (SIMCA), a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma said, “We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment(s) and order(s) of the High Court; hence, the special leave petitions are dismissed.”
At the centre of the case was a December 10, 2025 ruling of the Madras High Court, which had set aside contempt directions issued against FM radio broadcasters in a royalty dispute. The court had made it clear that “when the exact money payable is not quantified, the nonpayment of unquantified money cannot constitute willful disobedience.”
It also flagged the route that ought to have been followed. Before any enforcement, the amount payable had to be determined, followed by issuance of a certificate under Section 75 of the Copyright Act so that the claim could be executed like a civil decree.
The dispute goes back to compulsory licensing under Section 31 of the Copyright Act. By an order dated August 25, 2010, the Copyright Board fixed royalty at 2% of net advertisement revenue for FM radio broadcasters. The licence covered the period up to September 30, 2020.
Years later, in April 2023, the Madras High Court upheld that structure but added a minimum floor rate of Rs. 660 per needle hour for the same period.
The contempt proceedings that followed stemmed from allegations of non-compliance. On July 31, 2024, a single judge directed broadcasters to deposit 50% of the amounts they had themselves indicated before the Supreme Court. A later order on August 26, 2025 required them to furnish logs of music played and work out the royalty payable.
Both sets of directions were overturned by a Division Bench. The court found that the liability had not been quantified and remained disputed, making contempt jurisdiction inappropriate at that stage.
With the Supreme Court now declining to step in, that position holds.
For Petitioner: Arjun Krishnan, AOR, Advocates M.v. Swaroop, Devadharshini
For Respondents: Senior Advocates Abhishek Malhotra, Neeraj Kishan Kaul with Advocates Srishti Gupta, Kartikay Dutta, Anukriti Trivedi, Anjali Singariya, Sonali Jain, AOR, Sagar Chandra, Vanshaja Shukla, AOR, Srijan Uppal, Mehek Dua, Saakshi Khandelwal, Stuti Jain, Dhanya S Krishnan, Raghav Agrawal