Madras High Court issues notice to Rajnikanth, director & producer of 'Lingaa'

Madurai: The Madras High Court on Monday issued a notice to actor Rajnikanth and the director, producer and scriptwriter of the film 'Lingaa' on an appeal seeking to set aside the order of a single judge dismissing the case of plagiarism filed against him and others.

Justices V Dhanapalan and V M Velumani gave an order to this effect and posted the case for hearing on December 10.

The bench also issued a notice to the officials, including Director General of Police,IG (South zone), Madurai city Police Commissioner, Union Secretary, Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Tamil Nadu Secretary of Information and Cinema.

Petitioner K R Ravi Rathinam said he had given a complaint to police on November 1,2014, listing all the 'offences' committed by the four respondents. But no FIR had been registered though a cognizable offence had been made out, he said.

He said that after it was submitted that Lingaa's audio release would be on November 16, the respondents had 'purposely' released the film trailer to legitimize their illegal act, claiming his story "Mullai Vanam 999" was Lingaa.

On script writer's Pon Kumaran's statement that the story 'King Khan', the base story for Lingaa, had been registered on December 15 2012, he said 'King Khan' was released in Hindi in 2011.

Rathinam alleged the respondents were trying to dupe the court by filing a certificate of another story only showing that it had been registered.

Besides, while Rajikanth said the script and screenplay was by Pon Kumaran, director K.S.Ravikumar was claiming that he wrote the screenplay for the basic story by Ponkumaran. The petitioner sought to stay the film's release and also constitute a committee to find out the true author of the film 'Mullai Vanam 999' produced by him and 'Lingaa'.