Facts:

• Eastern Book Company and EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd. (Appellant No. 1) were partners in publishing law books, including the law report called “Supreme Court Cases” (SCC), which contained judgments, orders, and proceedings of the Supreme Court.
• They procured raw data from the registrar’s office and edited the judgments by formatting, numbering, cross-referencing, and adding headnotes, long notes, and footnotes. Surendra Malik, who was the third Appellant did this work.
• Spectrum Business Support Ltd and Regent Datatech Pvt Ltd (Respondents) developed software called “Grand Jurix” and “the Laws” respectively, which allegedly used the Appellants’ copy-edited version of the Supreme Court judgments without permission, infringing on the Appellant's exclusive rights.

Background/ Procedural Posture:

• The Plaintiff-Appellant herein sued for copyright infringement before the Delhi High Court to halt the Defendants’ judgment publication. Initially, an injunction was granted, then dismissed at a later stage. Respondents agreed to omit copyrighted headnotes.
• On appeal by the Appellant, the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court modified the judgement and ordered that while the Respondent-Defendants can sell CD-ROMs containing Supreme Court judgments along with their notes, they were not allowed to replicate the Plaintiff-Appellant’s headnotes. Additionally, the Defendant-Respondents were prohibited from copying the footnotes and editorial notes found in the Plaintiff-Appellant’s journal.
• The Appellants appealed to the Supreme Court.

Main Issue:

What level of originality is needed for copy-edited Supreme Court judgments to be protected under the Copyright Act of 1957 as an author's original work?