High Court stays copyright office’s order on Masud Rana-Kuasha
The virtual High Court bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Mohammad Ali passed the order and a rule after hearing writer Kazi Anwar Hossain's writ petition
The High Court has stayed a Copyright Office Bangladesh's order on declaring Sheikh Abdul Hakim as the author of 260 books in the popular Masud Rana series and 50 books in the Kuasha series for a month.
The virtual High Court bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Justice Mohammad Ali passed the order and a rule after hearing writer Kazi Anwar Hossain's writ petition.
Lawyer AM Amin Uddin and Barrister ABM Hamidul Misbah were in favour of the application in court.
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Hamidul Misbah said, "The copyright office had given a declaration on June 14 that Sheikh Abdul Hakim is the author of 260 books of the Masud Rana series and 50 books of the Kuasha series. Kazi Anwar Hossain appealed to the High Court against this."
"Following the hearing, the High Court stayed the June 14 decision for a month and issued a rule. In the rule, the court asked why the decision of the copyright office would not be declared illegal as it was out of its jurisdiction," he added.
The defendants in the rule are the culture secretary, the copyright office, the registrar of copyrights and the copyright board.
On July 29 last year, Sheikh Abdul Hakim filed a complaint at the Bangladesh Copyright Office against Kazi Anwar Hossain for violating sections 71 and 89 of the Bangladesh Copyright Act, claiming authorship of 260 books of the Masud Rana series and 50 books of the Kuasha series.
After around a year of legal battles, the Copyright Office Bangladesh ruled in favour of Sheikh Abdul Hakim on June 14.
On that day Zafar Raja Chowdhury, registrar of Copyright Office Bangladesh, said, "Sheikh Abdul Hakim only had the copyright for one book of the Masud Rana series and six books of the Kuasha series. The other books were not copyrighted, but he proved that he wrote them."
He also said, "To get the copyright of those books, he (Sheikh Abdul Hakim) has to appeal separately for each book. Then, his name will be published as the author of those books and he will have their copyrights."
