The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a writ petition filed by an aspiring filmmaker accusing the crew of Rajinikanth starrer Lingaa of having stolen his story, based on the construction of Mullaperiyar dam, for the movie.
Justice M. Venugopal held that the issue raised by the petitioner K.R. Ravi Rathinam, was a “private dispute” that could be solved only by initiating civil or criminal proceedings and not by invoking the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution.
The movie Lingaa is scheduled to be released on December 12 — Rajinikanth's birthday.
The petitioner had approached the court last month claiming to have penned a script for a movie titled Mullai Vanam 999 . He accused of having lifted his story from YouTube and sought for a direction to the police to register a case.
On the other hand, Rajinikanth, in his counter affidavit, claimed that both the script as well as screenplay for Lingaa were penned by S. Ponkumaran, who had registered his story with the South Indian Film Writers' Association under the title King Khan in 2010.
Further claiming that the case had been filed with an ulterior motive, he said, “The name and fame enjoyed by me worldwide has been tarnished as is the film Lingaa is a product of copycat. I have been roped into an unnecessary controversy...”
In his counter affidavit, Lingaa 's director K.S. Ravikumar stated that he who wrote the screenplay for the basic storyline of Mr. Ponkumaran. “Hence, the allegations levelled by the petitioner are not only false but also mischievous,” he added.
On his part, the Madurai Police Commissioner stated that a complaint lodged by the petitioner was forwarded to Tallakulam police station for enquiry. But, neither the petitioner not the Lingaa production team had submitted their stories for comparison.
