Architect Has No Right To Object Demolition Of Building Designed By Him; Delhi HC Dismisses Raj Rewal's Plea To Recreate Nehru Pavilion [Read Judgment]

In a notable judgment, the Delhi High Court has held that an architect of a building, in the capacity of an author of an artistic work of architecture, does not have the right to restrain the demolition of a building on the ground that it was designed as per his work. Section 57 provides that, "Author's special right- Independently of the author's copyright and even after the assignment either wholly or partially of the said copyright, the author of a work shall have the right - to claim authorship of the work; and to restrain or claim damages in respect of any distortion, mutilation, modification or other act in relation to the said work which is done before the expiration of the term of copyright if such distortion, mutilation, modification or other act would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation: Provided that the author shall not have any right to restrain of claim damages in respect of any adaptation of a computer programme to which clause of sub-section of section 52 applies. "The special rights of the author of an architectural work cannot be interpreted as being a restriction on the right to property of the owner of the land and building and entitling the author to restrain the owner of the land and building in which the architectural work has been expressed, from better utilizing his land or building by removing the existing building and constructing new building on the land. Rejecting the claim of the plaintiff that demolishing of the building violated the rights conferred on him as an author under the Copyright Act and affected his reputation, the court dismissed the suit holding, "The words distortion, mutilation and modification in Section 57 of the Copyright Act have to be understood as making the work look, appear, be seen, as something different from what the author had created and in which creation the honour and reputation of the author vests.