Chennai: The Madras high court on Tuesday refused to stay the release of Rajinikanth starrer Lingaa, scheduled to release on December 12, as was prayed for by a producer who alleged copyright violation on the part of the producers and director of the superstar flick. M/s Balaji Studios Pvt Limited moved a civil suit claiming that the story of Lingaa was in line with a Telugu film ‘Indra’ for which it claimed to have obtained the re-make rights.
Hearing the petition, Justice R Subbiah refused to stay the release of Lingaa and posted the case hearing to December 12. Alleging that the storyline, dialogues, scene sequence and characters of 'Linga' was the infringement of 'Indra', the petitioner firm submitted that it was planning to remake the Telugu film in Tamil and the basic work for it was going on. The petitioner company contended that producers of 'Linga' "intentionally" adopted the main story base of the Telugu film and have also cast same characters, scripted and arranged scene sequences.
The petitioner company further sought an interim injunction restraining the release of Lingaa and sought the appointment of an Advocate Commissioner to watch the film privately in the presence of its directors and submit a report on the story line to the court.
Filing his counter affidavit, Lingaa movie director K S Ravikumar denied having any knowledge of the story line of the Telugu film and submitted that the story line, dialogues, scene sequences and characters cast in 'Indra' have not been infringed, adopted or copied in the film 'Linga'. Submitting that M/s Balaji studios had no occasion to have access to the story line, dialogues, scene sequences and characters and when they have not seen the censored version of the film Lingaa, the alleged infringement of copyright was total falsehood, Ravikumar prayed to dismiss the suit.
