Stay on 'Dasavatharam' release

The Madras High Court has stayed the release of 'Dasavatharam' starring Kamal Haasan for four weeks and at the same time directed that the shooting of the film, if underway, could continue.

The stay was granted on Jan. 20 by Justice Chitra Venkataraman on a petition filed by an assistant director, S. Senthilkumar who claimed that the film is an 'imitation' of a story created by him for he holds the copyright and he was cheated of his due by the film-makers. He alleged that Kamal's office promised him an assistant director's job and a lump sum for his story. However, the shooting started leaving him out of the production crew which had 'dishonestly imitated' the story. When he went to protest, he was turned away by the persons associated with the film, he added.

Justice Chitra, in his interim orders, observed that 'there is no harm in granting an injunction for a limited period of four weeks against exhibiting the film.' And, 'the defendants are at liberty to go ahead with the shooting of the film,' the order said.

Before going to court, Senthilkumar (29), a resident of Kulakkarai, Tambaram West, had lodged a complaint with Chennai Police Commissioner Latika Saran that his story was used for the film 'Dasavatharam' and requested the Commissioner to stay the shooting of the film.

Senthilkumar had alleged that he had worked as an assistant director under Gurumani for the film 'Dhanush' and he was assisting Theerthamalai, the director of 'Appadiya'. He further stated that since the shooting of 'Dhanush' stopped midway, he wrote a story titled 'Ardanari'. Then he also prepared the screenplay based on this story with the hero playing as many as ten roles surrounded by thousands of characters. No one else had written such a story before, he stated in his police complaint. He claimed that as he thought that only Kamal suited for the lead role, the 'photo card' containing the title of the story had been sent to the office of Kamal on T.T.K. Road, Alwarpet, Chennai, by registered post. Last year on August 8, Senthilkumar met Kamal's aide, Murali, at his office and gave him a copy of the story, according to the police complaint.

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Dasavatharam