The Allahabad High Court refused to grant any interim relief
The Allahabad High Court refused to grant any interim relief against the upcoming Bollywood movie ‘Chehre’ in a plea alleging copyright infringement.
Uday Prakash v. Anand Pandit
A Bench of Justice JJ Munir observed that the movie and the copyrighted work alleged to have been plagiarised, appear to have a common source, they are materially different in treatment and development.
“There is, thus, prima facie a materially different and distinctive development and treatment of the same theme in both the scripts. In the prima facie opinion of this Court, there is, apart from the fundamentals of the basic theme that appear to have come from a common source, no such distinctive feature in the copyrighted version that have been prima facie plagiarized,” the order said.
In this case, the court was hearing an appeal against an order of District Judge who had rejected the application of Uday Prakash requesting for a temporary injunction in his suit for infringement of copyright.
Uday Prakash has alleged that Anand Pandit the producer of ‘Chehre’ has plagiarised his copyrighted script.
Prakash contended that he had obtained a copyright registration for his work under the name of ‘Highway-39’ way back in 2007. He claims that he had discussed his work with one of his acquaintances, Mazhar Kamran, who worked with him as a cameraman on several projects. Kamran assured him that he would copyright work to a few prominent producers, of which Anand Pandit was one.
In June 2019, Prakash came to know, from reliable sources in the film industry, that Anand Pandit is making a movie that is very similar to his copyrighted work.
Prakash contended that he has no assigned, transferred or sold his copyright work to anyone and he holds the same in his name alone. The violation of copyright is causing him the loss of name and reputation.
The court compared the two scripts after which it opined that it shows that while the principle theme is common to both scripts, there are “a host of differences in the script leading to the feature film.”
Thus the court rejected the plea for a temporary injunction to stay the release of the movie and directed the trial court to decide the suit expeditiously and conclude the trial within four months.
The court clarified its observations “It must be remarked here that whatever comparison has been done, is not, in any manner, a final expression of opinion on merits about the distinctive similarities or the dissimilarities. That is something that has to await trial, where wholesome evidence would now be led. All the remarks here are limited to the decision of the temporary injunction matter and nothing more,” the order said.
