Salman Khans Bajrangi Bhaijaan booked for plagiarism

Salman Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan booked for plagiarism; slapped with Rs 50 crore fine!

Hearing a suit which alleged that the story of Salman Khan-starrer "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" has been plagiarised, the Bombay High Court today declined to give any interim relief by staying its world television premier on October 10.

Justice Gautam Patel, however, directed that all the proceeds of the film should not be touched and kept aside during the pending of the notice of motion taken out in the suit.The notice of motion taken out by the plaintiff, Mahim Joshi, in the suit filed by him had urged the court to stay the television release of the film which has run housefull shows since its release on Eid this year.

Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Bollywood's most successful movie this year, is facing a Rs 50-crore copyright infringement suit in the Bombay High Court. The suit, brought by writer, director and TV producer Mahim Joshi, alleges the infringement is 'career damaging'.

The suit claims that Joshi intended to not only be the writer, but also the director and a co-producer for the movie. "This was supposed to be my launch project in movies," it says.

The court, while going through the documents attached to the suit which included detailed comparison of the movie's scenes and shots taken by Joshi, remarked that there did seem to be some similarity between the two and that the suit was a 'passionate plaint'.

Justice Gautam Patel, while hearing the case for the first time on Thursday, has directed all parties, including producers Rockline Venkatesh, Rajessh Bhatt and Salman Khan, a co-producer, writer KV Vijayendra Prasad and director Kabir Khan, to maintain accounts of business with respect to the movie. It also directed all respondents to file their replies by October 21.

Joshi's suit claims the movie's basic storyline is a '100 per cent infringement', and substantial similarities in the screenplay written by Joshi and that of the movie. It also includes a list of similarities, and further claims that Joshi had registered his story in July 2007 with the Indian Film and Television Producers Council as well as the Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programme Producers.

It adds that a month after registering his story, Joshi had entered into an agreement with Yashi Multi Media (YMM) - a production house owned by Suresh and Vivek Oberoi. The latter was supposed to play the lead role in the movie at the time.

YMM, however, could not produce the movie even after circulating it to certain studios. As soon as the five-year exclusivity period with YMM ended, Joshi began approaching other studios requesting them to be the main producer. One of the studios approached by Joshi was Viacom18. Parveez Shaikh, who has been given joint credit for the movie's screenplay, was associated with Viacom 18, the suit claims.

During the agreement period with YMM, Joshi had hired a team and paid them to search for locations. Video clips of these locations are attached to the suit and they bear resemblance to many locations shown in the movie, the suit claims.

On Thursday, Joshi, represented by a team of lawyers headed by senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas and comprising advocate Sushrut Desai and law firm Legal Associates, sought an injunction against the movie's television premiere on October 11. The court denied the petitioner citing delay in filing of the suit.

However, senior advocate Veerendra Tulzapurkar representing Star Gold channel and law firm DSK Legal for Salman Khan agreed to maintain accounts for the business done by the movie. The case will now be heard on October 28.

Hey Bhagwan! Ismein bhi chori! 😲 Anything that involves Sallu has a crime attached to it!

And Rajamouli's dad got credit for it...Shame, shame!

Bechara TV producer did all the hard work and location hunting, and this gang stole his idea, his story and locations and made crores!

Chore chore mastuto bhai😆

😆 😆 The whole team is involved in this. Im shocked that Kabir Khan is also involved in this chori and Rajamouli's dad too who is a senior person! I had better regard for Kabir... as for Sallu we cannot expect anything better from him...😆

He probably makes sure there will be some glorification of unlawful activities involved when he signs a film. Either in the story or in real life. 😆

Which song? The quawali?