MOOT PROBLEM

1. The country of Indiana is a country which is known for its rich history and has a
population of over a billion people and is also the largest democracy of the world.
Indiana has a written constitution and is known for its great integrity worldwide
with regards to guaranteeing its citizens, multiple fundamental rights to protect
their freedom and liberty. The country of Indiana follows a federal structure and
there is a division of power within the country with regards to government at
various levels.

2. Since, Indiana is a federal country, it has several ministries and departments to

look after its affairs and the Department of Music is one such department which
functions under the Ministry of Performing Arts. It takes initiatives to popularise
a special kind of singing style which is the traditional ‘Raag’ style of music. The
raag style of music is so popular that even the neighbouring countries of Indiana
namely Lakistan and Bindh Pradesh also show great enthusiasm towards learning
this specific music form.

3. Indiana has also been witnessing a lot of cyber law and data protection related
issues within the country and therefore to curb the same, the government of
Indiana has passed the Cyber Affairs and Data Protection Act 2022, which has
also been implemented nationwide and has resulted in significant decline in the
issues related to cyber and data privacy related domain.

4. Aditya Sharma is a 31-year-old professional raag musician and singer from the
state of Vindyanchal, Aditya Sharma is a well-known face worldwide when it
comes to raag music and has been in the same since a very early age of 9 years.
Aditya’s hard work and determination towards his passion earned him the name,
fame and respect both nationally and internationally.

5. Considering his popularity, it is also very evident that Aditya has a notable
presence over social media through only one single account on Chatbook which he
created way back at the age of 18. However, he was only able to share the
performances of initial 2 years and after that he was unable to operate that
account due to his busy schedule and professional commitments.
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6. Another social media platform ‘Quickgram’ gains wide acceptance among the
masses so Mr. Aditya Sharma, while being 25 years of age, decides to create an
account over Quickgram to increase his ever-increasing fan base even more.

7. Resultantly, his fanbase has grown manifolds as he was always appreciated for
his talent in the domain of raag music. Aditya always has been the torch bearer in
the country and abroad and therefore, by the way of his hard work and
commitment he wanted to be recognized as ‘The Global Raag Icon.’

8. Fortunately, to honour the exceptional talents in the field of music, the

government, under the Department of Music, Ministry of Performing Arts,
honours the artists with the ‘Global Raag Icon Award’ which is given by the
department through its organization ‘Kala Samman Samiti.’

9. The perks that the recipient of this award would be getting is a monetory award
of Rs. 3 Crores and travel benefits to cover 1 national and 1 international trip for
the promotion to the genre of the talent of the artist for a period of 2 years.

10. The essential conditions for being eligible for the ‘Global Raag Icon Award’
were kept to be as follows:
The concerned applicant must be a well-known face in the field of raag music
and must be fully devoted to raag music only and he/she should not be
performing any be involved in any other music form or its glorification.
The applicant must be less than the age of 35 years on the 1st of January of
the year in which they’re applying.
The applicant is also under an obligation to submit a detailed information of
his/ her professional shows and concerts along with one sample video of his/her
raag music performance for the purpose of thorough assessment.
Another important condition is that if a candidate gets rejected then he/she
will not be eligible to apply for the award forum minimum period of 3 years.
The entire process is kept to be fair, just and reasonable by the way that an
external committee of experts would be deciding the fate of the application
submitted based on a detailed background check along with all the above
specified conditions.
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11. It was in the year 2023, that the Kala Samman Samiti invited applications on
October 10, 2023 for the award with the last date of submission being October 31,
2023. Mr. Aditya Sharma filed nomination for the award on dated October 15, 2023.
In compliance of the stated conditions, Aditya also uploaded a 10-minute video of his
raag music performance alongside fulfilling other specified conditions.

12. Subsequently, the final result of the status of the award was declared on
November 15, 2023. To a great surprise, Aditya, was not selected for the award as
per the final results which were declared by the organization on the basis of the final
decision of the expert committee.

13. Not only this, the candidature of Aditya was declared to be ‘rejected’ and thus the
long-standing dream of Aditya to become the front face of raag music was broken.
Despite of being more experienced from Prince (The receiver of the award) Aditya
was unable to get through.

14. The main reason that was given for the rejection of the candidature of Aditya
from the award was 'Aditya was also involved in the performance of pop music apart
from the raag music which made him ineligible to receive the award' .

15. On enquiry from his team and friends, Aditya was informed by Raman (his school
friend) that there is a video on Chatbook which is making rounds where Aditya could
be seen singing pop music along with the fusion of raag music in it. This video was
similar to the one which Aditya had submitted for evaluation as the part of the Award
function but the same was an edited and morphed video. Aditya found that his voice
was edited to change the genre of the performance.

16. Seeing the chain of events, Aditya categorically alleged that he had only
submitted an authentic raag music video for consideration for the purpose of the
awards and nothing else. Raman, Aditya's friend, who is also a certified technological
expert, is of the opinion that the video, which was being circulated online, was a
deepfake video created to defame Aditya. This was also the same video which Aditya
uploaded for evaluation.
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17. Mr Aditya submitted a written application to the Kala Samman Samiti's
chairman explaining the entire situation to him in writing and also requesting him to
consider his request for the revaluation of his application as the video which was
considered to be a part of the application which was submitted by Aditya for the
purpose of award was a deepfake video.

18. Aditya also alleged that his video leaked from the very database of Kala
Samman Samiti itself. But, eventually his request for reconsideration of the
application was rejected.

19. Being aggrieved by the same and being sure of the fact that the video was a
deepfake video, Aditya opted to register a complaint with Chatbook to take the
concerned video down as it could harm Aditya’s reputation while featuring him in the
wrong light.

20. Taking swift action, the video and question were removed within the stipulated
timeline by Chatbook. But it was still too late and Aditya suffered a great loss to his
reputation.

21. Resultantly, Aditya went on to file a police complaint against the Kala Samman
Samiti alleging misappropriation and mishandling of data, stating that, his video
leaked from the server of Kala Samman Samiti. The police complaint was registered
under section 66D of the Information Technology Act of 2000.

22. Upon investigation by the police, it was found that there was a data leak from the
website and database of Kala Samman Samiti. But the police also found the absence
of malice or misinformation from the side of the Kala Samman Samiti regarding
Aditya.

23. Upon the conclusion of the investigation by the police, subsequently, Aditya filed
a Writ Petition before the High Court of Vindhyanchal and prayed to issue
directions for the reconsideration of his application concerning the award. He further
prayed to direct appropriate central government agency to investigate such a
technical and advanced deepfake crime.
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24. Also, Aditya strongly questioned that whether any candidate be disqualified on
the basis of online social media content or posts?

25. While deciding the Writ Petition, a single bench of High Court of Vindyanchal
dismissed the writ petition while relying on the closure report filed by the police
which stated that it can’t be ascertained with surety that the deepfake video was
also uploaded by Aditya on the server of Kala Samman Samiti.

26. Mr Aditya also filed a suit against Kala Samman Samiti before the High
Court of Vindyanchal asking for compensation of Rs 3 Crores as there was a great
harm which was caused to his reputation due to the rejection of his candidature
emerging video leakage from the database of Kala Samman Samiti.

27. The High Court preferred relying upon the final decision of the concurrent
bench of the high court in the writ petition and therefore dismissed the suit
initiated by Mr. Aditya.

28. Being aggrieved by the same, Aditya went on to appeal against the decision to
the high court in the suit as well as writ petitions before a division bench of the
High Court of Vindyanchal. The same was also dismissed by the division bench of
the high court and it found the judgement to be fair and well-reasoned.

29. Still being aggrieved by the decision of the High Court, Aditya has now
preferred Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court of Indiana. Upon
consideration, The Apex Court has framed the following issues:

A) Whether the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filled by Aditya Sharma is

Maintainable?
B) Whether Mr. Aditya’s rejection based on the social media post by the Kala
Samman Samiti was correct or not?
C) Can the Kala Samman Samiti be held liable to pay adequate compensation
to Aditya in lieu of legal injury caused to him due to the data leak from Kala
Samman Samiti’s server?
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NOTE:

The laws of Indiana are pari materia to that of the Republic of India.
Chatbook and Quickgram are pari materia with Facebook and Instagram
respectively.
Cyber Affairs and Data Protection Act 2022 is pari materia with the Digital
Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
All the teams are free to form 1 additional issue as per the moot proposition if
the teams so desire.
This Moot Proposition has solely been designed for the purpose of this moot
court competition as a part of academic exercise specifically. Any resemblance
with the actual world is merely co-incidental.