The Supreme Court of India has confirmed that its interim stay order dated April 21, 2025 in the dispute between Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) and Azure Hospitality Private Limited cannot be enforced on third parties. The Court emphasized that this relief is applicable only to the parties involved in the case before the Delhi High Court.

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Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) had approached the Supreme Court through an interim application (I.A. No. 146684/2025) seeking clarifications after several third parties refused to pay licence fees for using its copyrighted audio recordings. These parties were citing the earlier interim moratorium of the Supreme Court as their defence.

On April 21, 2025, the Supreme Court had stayed the Delhi High Court's direction directing Azure to pay licence fees to (PPL) based on the tariff determined by Recorded Music Performance Limited (RMPL), wherein PPL was treated as a member of RMPL. However, this stay did not restore the earlier injunction of a single judge of the High Court, which had completely restrained Azure from using PPL's music.

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In its recent order dated June 19, 2025, a bench of Justices Ujjwal Bhuyan and Manmohan clarified the extent of the stay:

“Without getting into the rival contentions at this stage, we clarify that the aforesaid order shall be mutually binding between the parties to CS(COM) 714/2022 pending before the learned single judge bench of the Delhi High Court in terms of prayer ‘A’ of the application.”

This clarification makes it clear that third parties cannot rely on the April 21 stay order to avoid paying licence fees to Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL). The Court essentially confirmed that the earlier relief applies only to the parties directly involved in the ongoing litigation – i.e. PPL and Azure Hospitality.

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PPL had earlier filed a copyright infringement suit against Azure, alleging unauthorised use of its copyrighted sound recordings in Azure’s chain of restaurants such as Mamagoto, Dhaba and Sly Granny. A single judge of the Delhi High Court had granted interim injunction against Azure on March 3, 2025.

Subsequently, the division bench modified this injunction and directed Azure to pay licence fees to PPL as per RMPL's tariff structure, without passing any judgment on the original copyright claim. This modified direction was stayed by the Supreme Court in April, due to which clarification is currently required.

At the hearing on June 19, 2025:

• PPL was represented by senior advocates Gopal Jain and Vikram Nankani along with Sucheta Roy, Ankit Arvind, Nidhi Pathak and law firm Khaitan & Co.
• Azure was represented by senior advocates Sandeep Sethi and Viraj Datar, supported by a large team including Shivani Chaudhary, A. Karthik, Sugam Aggarwal and others.

The special leave petition (SLP) in this case is now scheduled to be heard along with another related SLP(C) No. 13597/2025.

"The impugned directions as per paragraph 27 of the impugned order shall remain in abeyance. However, we clarify that notwithstanding this stay order, the order dated March 3, 2025 passed by the learned Single Judge shall not apply," - Supreme Court, order dated April 21, 2025.

This clarification restores the legal obligation of third parties to pay licence fees for copyrighted content, confirming the limited scope of the interim relief granted by the Supreme Court.

Case no. – SLP(C) No. 10977/2025

Case Title – Phonographic Performance Ltd. v. Azure Hospitality Private Limited