(UNI) The Bombay High Court has directed the Mumbai Police to include the Yashraj Films as the accused in an offence registered with the Amboli police station relating to the film ‘Ek Tha Tiger’.
A division bench of Justices A M Khanvilkar and R Y Ganoo yesterday passed the order following an application moved by the counsel Prashant Patil for his client Anand Shankar Panda, a writer.
Based on the directions of the High Court, the Mumbai police registered an offence under sections 406, 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 51, 53 and 63 of the Copyrights act against producer Aditya Chopra, director Kabir Khan, Ms Samyukta Khan and Nilesh Mishra.
The police had not booked the company Yashraj Films in the case, hence when the counsel Patil pointed this to the court directed to include the company’s name in the First Information Report that was registered with police on September 9.
The Amboli police registered an FIR against the producer of the film ‘Ek Tha Tiger’, Aditya Chopra and director Kabir Khan, under charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust and violation of Copyright Act.
Panda had approached the High Court alleging the accused had stolen his script to make the film.
In his complaint, Panda stated that he had approached the producer in 2011 with his script ‘Ghost Wars’, which is registered with Film Writers’ Association in Mumbai and under the Data Protection Act in London. The script was returned to him after some time.
He alleged in his complaint that despite being told that his work had been turned down, the producer made ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ on the basis of his script. He also approached the Writers’ Association about it.
The complainant informed the court that when he saw the film he found that its storyline, plot and characters had been infringed from his script ‘Ghost Wars’.
The film was made very secretly, for a Rs 100 crore club movie there was not even a ‘muhurat’, lest to talk about celebrations and the entire schedule was done abroad, he said leaving him clueless, the complainant stated. UNI
