The Delhi High Court came to the rescue of Salman Khan aka Bhai and his film ‘Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai’yesterday when it restrained illegal distribution of the film on WhatsApp and other short messaging and social media platforms.

The order is in response to an instant suit filed by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd in the Delhi High Court for permanent injunction, rendition of accounts and damages for the infringement of its exclusive license and exploitation rights in the film ‘Radhe:Your Most Wanted Bhai’, HinduBusinessline newspaper reported yesterday.

The order passed by a single judge bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula of the Delhi court has restrained private individuals from “unauthorisedly storing, reproducing, communicating, disseminating, circulating, copying, selling, offering for sale or making available copies of the film or any other portion thereof, through WhatsApp or any other means or modes,” that may infringe Zee’s copyright in the film.

Zee’s group company Zee Studios has co-produced the film and is also one of the distributors of ‘Radhe’ that debuted on digital platforms in India, including streamer ZEE5 on a pay-per-view (Rs. 249 for a six-hour single viewing for ZEE5’s annual premium subscribers of Rs. 499.00) basis in an experiment that could chart new frontiers in film distribution in India in the aftermath of pandemic.

Meanwhile, according to the HBL report, the Delhi court also directed WhatsApp and other social media platforms to suspend service, ultimately terminate and permanently delete the WhatsApp accounts of individuals selling pirated copies of the film.

The court has also directed Internet Service Providers to disclose subscriber details of the offenders to Zee to initiate further legal action against them.

Zee had previously filed an FIR before the Inspector General of Police, Maharashtra Cyber Digital Crime Unit under the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 against known and unknown persons for selling pirated versions of the film.

The film, a typical Salman Khan potboiler, is based on a Korean film, The Outlaw, and has been panned for its mindlessness and lack of substance despite ‘Radhe’ downloads reportedly crashing the ZEE5 server.