Mumbai, Apr 29 (PTI) Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh has opened about the legal trouble over his 2016 film “Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh”, saying that he never imagined a plagiarism complaint over would escalate into a decade-long criminal case, and urged fellow creators to treat such threats with seriousness from the outset.
Speaking at a session hosted by the Screenwriters Association (SWA), Ghosh recalled how the controversy began soon after the release of the Vidya Balan-starrer, when writer Robin Bhatt informed him that a man was accusing him of copying his script.
Dismissing the claim as baseless at the time, Ghosh said his casual approach proved costly.
“It’s like somebody saying, ‘You killed that person’, I was like, ‘I haven’t’ and why should I take it seriously, and that was my biggest mistake. Suddenly, I get a criminal case against me because IP in our country is a criminal case.
“So, if I accuse you of (plagiarising), you can file a criminal case against me. It came out of nowhere. Initially, I didn’t take it seriously. It’s like a slow burn, which starts gathering momentum and the fight goes bigger and before you know it, it has hit you,” the filmmaker said at a session hosted by Screenwriters Association (SWA) around the disputes within the screenwriting community.
Last month, the Supreme Court quashed the proceedings in a case alleging copyright infringement against Ghosh over his movie “Kahaani 2”, and stated that the complaint only contained “bald and unsubstantiated allegations”.
The complainant, Umesh Prasad Mehta, had written a script of film “Sabak”, and alleged Ghosh violated his copyright by committing theft of his script and made “Kahaani 2”, which was a sequel to his 2012 hit “Kahaani”, also starring Balan.
Describing the prolonged legal battle as “scary”, Ghosh said the situation became increasingly complex as the writer made multiple claims, including his alleged meetings with him, which he insists never happened.
“…I hadn’t met this gentleman and he said he met me and gave me a script and that I sent some a thug to his place. I didn’t know where all this is coming from. I had a hard time proving that I haven’t met him,” he recounted.
The filmmaker, also known for movies like “Jhankar Beats”, and “Badla”, The director credited the SWA’s Dispute Settlement Committee, which reviewed both scripts and found no connection between them, with helping his case.
He said he was initially unaware of the internal verdict, as the complainant had already filed a legal case against him.
“When I found about the SWA verdict, I gave a copy of it to the Supreme Court and when it went through the whole thing, thankfully, things were on my side and I was given a clean chit by the court. It is quite a nightmare; it went on for about ten years,” Ghosh said.
“(But) there are many people suffering with you. The hardest part is to keep quiet, like you can’t discuss the case with anybody in the fear that if it comes out in the open, especially in today’s time when there’s social media, we’ve to be careful as we trialled by people who don’t know what it is about,” he said.
Ghosh urged fellow writers and filmmakers to treat such accusations with seriousness from the outset.
“The biggest mistake I made was that I took it very lightly; I didn’t give the seriousness it deserved because I didn’t do anything. So, there’s no point thinking that you’re innocent. Fighting an unknown person in Jharkhand is not easy,” he said.
The session, titled ‘Samvaad Se Samjhauta’, was also attended by writer Jyoti Kapoor of “Badhaai Ho” fame, who spoke of her own plagiarism battle over a script that she alleged was used for filmmaker Kunal Kohli’s “Phir Se”.
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that there were similarities between the two.
Kapoor said the emotional impact of the ordeal lingers even now. “I was going through my judgment; I realised that it is going to be 11 years next month and one would think you’ve moved on and that it doesn’t trigger you anymore but I read it and it all came back to me. It was one hell of a year,” she said.
She recalled discovering the alleged plagiarism after pitching her script to multiple filmmakers, including Kohli, with whom negotiations had fallen through.
“I read an excerpt about the story in the media and I knew it is my story. My producers sourced the script from someone and I was 101 percent sure it was my story,” she said.
Despite winning the SWA verdict, Kapoor said she faced public criticism and a defamation suit during the dispute.
“While the case was going on I couldn’t afford paid publicity and he could. I read it in a newspaper, which said that, ‘She is a publicity hungry writer’, nobody bothered to reach out to me. That’s when I wrote an angry post on social media because I was helpless as somebody was maligning me. That post went viral and I got a lot of support from my peers, writers, directors, and producers, the moral support at that time was important,” she said. PTI KKP RB RB
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