The Madras High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a civil revision petition filed by script writer K.P. Selvah alias Paneer Selvam, accusing film director Atlee of having plagiarised one of the petitioner’s scripts titled ‘Kalki’ for making the much-awaited Vijay-starrer Bigil , scheduled for a Deepavali release.
Justice R. Suresh Kumar deferred his verdict, without mentioning a date when it would be delivered, after hearing elaborate arguments advanced on behalf of the petitioner, the film director, as well as AGS Entertainment Private Limited, which has produced the movie at a considerable cost.
Arguing on behalf of the production house, advocate Srinath Sridevan told the court that Mr. Selvah had originally filed a civil suit before the City Civil Court in Chennai, seeking a permanent injunction restraining Mr. Atlee and AGS Entertainment from making and releasing a movie based on ‘Kalki’.
Though what he tried to complain about was alleged infringement of his copyright, the words “copyright” or “infringement” did not find a place anywhere in his plaint filed before XIV Assistant Judge S. Kayalvizhi, the advocate said, and pointed out that the suit had various defects both legally and factually.
The plaintiff’s case was that he had registered his script ‘Kalki’ with the South Indian Film Writers’ Association on October 10, 2018, but Mr. Atlee penned his script and registered it in July 2018 itself, Mr. Sridevan asserted, and claimed that he had also apprised the City Civil Court of the facts in his plea to reject the plaint.
After the filing of the detailed pleadings pointing out various defects in the suit, the plaintiff chose to withdraw his suit. Hence, the Assistant Judge dismissed the suit as withdrawn on August 20, but did not grant any liberty to the plaintiff to file a fresh suit after rectification of the defects. Aggrieved over the failure to grant liberty for filing a fresh suit, the petitioner had approached the High Court with the present revision petition.
“Even this revision petition is not maintainable in view of a recent judgment of the Supreme Court. He can only file a first appeal and not a revision,” counsel for the production house contended.
