Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh can breathe a sigh of relief. Last month, the Supreme Court quashed the proceedings in a case alleging copyright infringement against the filmmaker over his movie Kahaani 2. At a recent event in Mumbai, Sujoy opened up about the ‘nightmare’ and said his biggest mistake was taking it lightly initially.
Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh was written and directed by Sujoy and starred Vidya Balan alongside Arjun Rampal, Jugal Hansraj, Kharaj Mukherjee, and Tunisha Sharma. The 2016 release was a commercial success, earning ₹54 crore on a ₹17-crore budget. Immediately after the film’s release, Sujoy was sued by a Jharkhand man, Umesh Prasad Mehta, who claimed that Sujoy stole his script and made Kahaani 2 from it.
Sujoy Ghosh on plagiarism case
At Samvaad Se Samjhauta, a session on dispute resolution organised by the Screenwriters Association of India (SWA) in Mumbai on Tuesday, Sujoy opened up about the experience.
“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,” Sujoy recalled.
In his complaint, Mehta said Sujoy stole the idea for Kahaani 2 from his script, Sabak. Sujoy said the legal battle lasted 10 years, becoming ‘scary’ as the complainant added more claims, including meetings that never took place. “I hadn’t met this gentleman, and he said he met me and gave me a script, and that I sent a thug to his place. I didn’t know where all this was coming from. I had a hard time proving that I hadn’t met him,” he recounted.
‘It was quite a nightmare’
The director credited the SWA’s Dispute Settlement Committee, which reviewed both scripts and found no connection between them, with helping his case. “When I found out 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,” he said.
Eventually, in February this year, the Supreme Court dismissed the case, stating that the complaint contained only “bald and unsubstantiated allegations”.
The session, titled Samvaad Se Samjhauta, was also attended by writer Jyoti Kapoor, of Badhaai Ho fame, and moderated by veteran screenwriter Preeti Mamgain.