The Madras High Court has restrained Mumbai-based Pranita Pawar Productions from releasing its Marathi film Majha Naav Shivaji , after actor Dhanush’s Wunderbar Films filed a civil suit alleging the film is a copy of his 2014 Tamil movie Velai Illa Pattathari ( VIP ).
The suit also prayed for a direction to the Mumbai-based production house to surrender to the plaintiff company the entire stock of software, digitised master copies, master cassettes, master HD/DVD/CDs, sound recordings, literature, pamphlets and all other material related to its movie.
Claim proved
Justice C.V. Karthikeyan directed producers Pranita Pawar and Chakraborty, who also plays the lead role, to provide accounts of the profits they have earned through the movie, and pay costs incurred by the plaintiff to file the suit.
He said Wunderbar Films had proved its claim by producing sufficient evidence.
According to the plaintiff, the promos, teasers, trailers, storyline, scenes, write-ups and clips of songs available publicly on the internet prove that Majha Naav Shivaji was a remake of VIP .
“The storyline is the same. The songs are copies from the songs of VIP . Thus, the defendants have infringed the plaintiff’s copyrights,” it said.
Wunderbar Films pointed out scenes that were similar to VIP , and said tunes of two songs from VIP — ‘ Udhungada Sangu …’ and ‘ What a Karuvad …’ — have been copied in Majha Naav Shivaji .
Saying that a legal notice issued by the plaintiff to Ms. Pawar was returned undelivered, Wunderbar said it had also issued a public notice in local newspapers.
