High court clears release of Nishabd Friday
Feb 27, 2007 IANSDismissing film director Jahar Kanungo's petition accusing Varma of plagiarising his film of the same name, Justice A.K. Sikri said the petitioner approached the court too late to secure the legal reprieve and have the film stopped from being released.
"Injunction of the nature pressed by the plaintiff (Kanungo) cannot be granted at this stage when he approached the court barely 10 days before the proposed release of the film," said justice Sikri in his 38-page ruling.
The judge squarely blamed Kanungo for failing in getting his requisite legal reprieve by approaching the court late.
'Nishabd', directed by Varma, tells the story of a 65-year-old man, infatuiated with a girl of his daughter's age. The lead roles in the film have been played by Amitabh Bachchan, Jiah Khan and Rewati.
Senior counsel Rajiv Nayar appearing for Varma had argued for dismissal of Kanungo's petition, contending that there was no violation of the Copyright Act or Trademark Act as both the films were different and having different storylines.
The "Nisshabda" produced by Kanungo was a Bengali art film in documentary form, submitted Nayar.
Moreover, he said, Kanungo approached the court just before the scheduled release of the film though he knew of the title of Varma's film in May 2006.
Citing evidence, he said Kanungo had written an e-mail to Western Indian Film Producers Association about the title of the film on May 8, 2006.
Accordingly, he should have approached Varma or the court earlier to seek the legal succor, said Nayar.
Kanungo's counsel Kartik Jai Shanker, however, had argued that Varma had knowingly infringed upon the intellectual property rights over the name and title of Kanungo's film 'Nisshabda' which had won many international awards.
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