MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court today dismissed an application filed by KBC Pictures seeking a stay on the screening of Ghajini.
Justice DG Karnik held that on the face of it the documents relied upon by KBC to claim a copyright for the Hindi remake of the film were not reliable. The court imposed a cost of Rs10,000 on the petitioner.
Ghajini was released on Thursday after the Madras High Court vacated an earlier stay granted in a separate case alleging copyright violation. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for December 31.
In Bombay, KBC Pictures had produced a December 2005 agreement, claiming that AR Murugadoss, director of both the Tamil and Hindi versions of Ghajini, had sold the copyright for the film’s Hindi remake to KBC for Rs11 lakh.
Murugadoss’s lawyer, Venkatesh Dhond, denied that his client had signed the agreement. Moreover, Murugadoss did not own the film’s copyright, he said.
Karnik compared the signature on the agreement and with that on Murugadoss’s driving licence and held that prime facie the two signatures did not match.
The justice noted that the 2005 agreement was only registered last week, a day before the suit was filed. Also, the stamp paper had not been purchased in the name of any of the parties, nor did it bear the notarisation registration number.
The court issued notice to the notary who allegedly notarised the agreement.
Pointing out the delay in filing the suit, justice Karnik said advertisements of the Hindi remake of Ghajini began appearing from February 2008. Yet the petitioner moved the court in December. "The defendants' claim that the suit is an attempt to extract money is not without substance," he said.
KBC had claimed that it had begun shooting the Hindi remake of Ghajini and 90 per cent of the work was complete. But KBC’s lawyer was unable to answer the judge's queries on the film's budget and its actors.
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