Punjab and Haryana High Court Refuses To Interfere With Facebook's Removal Of Song After Copyright Complaint
Riya Rathore
20 Jun 2026 7:58 PM IST
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has recently declined to intervene in Meta's removal of a song from a Facebook page.
The court noted that the song had been uploaded without the copyright owner's consent. It also found that the page owner had not placed any material on record to dispute that position.
Justice Jagmohan Bansal observed that the Facebook page owner had been informed that the song was removed because it was uploaded without the copyright owner's consent.
The court further found that Meta had acted in accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
"The petitioner has not produced any evidence to the contrary, thus, respondent had rightly removed aforesaid song from its platform. The respondent has acted in accordance with 2021 Rules, thus, there is no violation in the removal of aforesaid song," the court observed.
Maninderjeet Singh, who runs a Facebook page titled "Lok Awaz Punjabi", had approached the High Court seeking a direction to Meta to comply with Rule 4(8) of the 2021 Rules.
He contended that content from his page had been removed on the basis of a private complaint. According to him, he was not given an opportunity of hearing before the removal.
Meta contended that Singh had uploaded a song belonging to a person who held copyright over it without obtaining consent. The platform submitted that it was required to act on the copyright owner's complaint.
Meta also submitted that only the song had been removed. The Facebook page itself remained accessible.
After examining the record, the court noted that Singh had been informed of the reason for the removal. It also noted that he had not produced any material to dispute that explanation.
"Question of compliance of Rule 4(8) is left open," the court observed.
Disposing of the petition, the court observed that Meta had removed only the song and not the petitioner's page from its platform.
For Petitioner: Advocate Nikhil Ghai
For Facebook: Senior Advocate Puneet Bali with Advocates Yash Karunakaran and Aakash Sharma
For Union of India: Advocate Saigeeta Srivastava
Counsel for State of Punjab: Additional Advocate General Ferry Sofat