Under Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the Commercial Court may direct the grant of a licence…

Section 31(1) of the Copyright Act, 1957 lets the Commercial Court direct a licence only "if it is satisfied that the grounds for such refusal are not reasonable" (before the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, this was the Appellate Board's jurisdiction). An untraceable owner is the case for section 31A, not section 31, and neither the time out of print nor the size of the royalty offered is the test.