In a significant relief for filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh, the Supreme Court of India has set aside criminal proceedings initiated against him in a copyright infringement case linked to his 2016 film Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh.
According to a report by Bar and Bench, a Bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe observed that the complaint lacked substance and failed to establish even a basic comparison between the two works in question. The court noted that the allegations were vague and unsupported, with no clear indication of how the film resembled the complainant’s script.
The case stemmed from a complaint filed by Umesh Prasad Mehta, who alleged that his script titled Sabak had been copied for the film. He claimed to have shared his work with Ghosh in 2015. Acting on this complaint, a magistrate court in Hazaribagh had issued summons in 2018 under provisions of the Copyright Act. Later, the Jharkhand High Court declined to quash the case, stating that the matter warranted trial.
Ghosh subsequently moved the apex court, where his counsel, Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, argued that the complaint did not provide any material evidence demonstrating similarity between the scripts and that the proceedings were a misuse of legal process.
The Supreme Court agreed with these submissions, pointing out that both the magistrate’s summoning order and the High Court’s decision showed a lack of proper judicial consideration. It also highlighted that witness statements presented by the complainant did not establish that any part of the script had been copied.
A key factor in the ruling was the finding of the Screen Writers Association’s Dispute Settlement Committee, which had earlier concluded that there was no resemblance between the two works. The court noted that this crucial detail had not been disclosed to the magistrate at the time of issuing summons.
Additionally, the Bench …read more
Disclaimer : This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by FilmyFriday. Source:: BollywoodHungama
