Sujoy Ghosh: ‘Taking it lightly was my biggest mistake’: Sujoy Ghosh on 10-year ‘Kahaani 2’ legal battle | Hindi Movie News
Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh has addressed the legal issues linked to his 2016 film ‘Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh’, admitting he never thought a plagiarism allegation would spiral into a decade-long criminal case, while urging fellow creators to take such matters seriously right from the start.
Sujoy Ghosh recalls how the controversy began
At an event hosted by the Screenwriters Association (SWA), Ghosh shared that the controversy began shortly after the release of the Vidya Balan-starrer, when writer Robin Bhatt alerted him that a man was accusing him of plagiarising his script.Brushing aside the allegation as baseless at the time, Ghosh said his laid-back response ended up costing him dearly. “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,” the filmmaker said at a session hosted by Screenwriters Association (SWA) around the disputes within the screenwriting community. Last month, the Supreme Court quashed the proceedings in a case alleging copyright infringement against Ghosh over his movie “Kahaani 2”, and stated that the complaint only contained “bald and unsubstantiated allegations”.
Sujoy Ghosh case details and plagiarism claim
Umesh Prasad Mehta, the complainant, claimed he had written a script titled ‘Sabak’ and accused Ghosh of infringing his copyright by allegedly using it to create ‘Kahaani 2’, a sequel to the 2012 hit ‘Kahaani’ starring Vidya Balan.
Sujoy Ghosh describes legal battle as scary
Calling the prolonged legal battle “scary”, Ghosh said the situation grew more complicated as the writer made several claims, including alleged meetings with him that he maintains never took place. “…I hadn’t met this gentleman and he said he met me and gave me a script and that I sent some a thug to his place. I didn’t know where all this is coming from. I had a hard time proving that I haven’t met him,” he recounted.The filmmaker, also known for movies like “Jhankar Beats”, and “Badla”, The director credited the SWA’s Dispute Settlement Committee, which reviewed both scripts and found no connection between them, with helping his case.
Sujoy Ghosh gets relief from Supreme Court
He said he was initially unaware of the internal verdict, as the complainant had already taken legal action against him. “When I found 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. (But) there are many people suffering with you. The hardest part is to keep quiet, like you can’t discuss the case with anybody in the fear that if it comes out in the open, especially in today’s time when there’s social media, we’ve to be careful as we trialled by people who don’t know what it is about,” he said.
Sujoy Ghosh advises creators to take allegations seriously
Ghosh advised fellow writers and filmmakers to approach such allegations with caution right from the start. “The biggest mistake I made was that I took it very lightly; I didn’t give the seriousness it deserved because I didn’t do anything. So, there’s no point thinking that you’re innocent. Fighting an unknown person in Jharkhand is not easy,” he said.The session, titled ‘Samvaad Se Samjhauta’, was also attended by Jyoti Kapoor, known for ‘Badhaai Ho’, who opened up about her own plagiarism dispute, alleging that her script was used in Kunal Kohli’s ‘Phir Se’. In 2015, the Supreme Court noted similarities between the two.
Jyoti Kapoor recalls emotional impact of case
Kapoor said the emotional impact of the ordeal lingers even now. “I was going through my judgment; I realised that it is going to be 11 years next month and one would think you’ve moved on and that it doesn’t trigger you anymore but I read it and it all came back to me. It was one hell of a year,” she said. She recalled discovering the alleged plagiarism after pitching her script to multiple filmmakers, including Kohli, with whom negotiations had fallen through. “I read an excerpt about the story in the media and I knew it is my story. My producers sourced the script from someone and I was 101 percent sure it was my story,” she said.Despite securing the SWA verdict in her favour, Kapoor said she had to deal with public backlash and a defamation case during the dispute. “While the case was going on I couldn’t afford paid publicity and he could. I read it in a newspaper, which said that, ‘She is a publicity hungry writer’, nobody bothered to reach out to me. That’s when I wrote an angry post on social media because I was helpless as somebody was maligning me. That post went viral and I got a lot of support from my peers, writers, directors, and producers, the moral support at that time was important,” she said.
