Madras High Court okays title Nagesh Thiraiarangam' for film

Chennai: Vacating the interim order, which restrained the producer and director of the Tamil film Nagesh Thiraiarangam from the using the name Nagesh Thiraiarangam in their film or works, the Madras high court has directed them not to use the name “Nagesh” independently, or exploit the popularity of the famous actor C.K. Nagesh for promoting the film Nagesh Thiraiarangam.

Justice C.V. Karthikeyan gave the directive while dismissing the application filed by Anand Babu, son of the famous comedian Nagesh and allowing the applications filed by the producer and director of the film to vacate the interim orders. The judge said the producer and director of the film shall use the word Nagesh Thiraiarangam and cannot refer to the name Nagesh Thiraiarangam, T. Nagar, Chennai. Teasers/ advertisements produced by them allegedly using the name of the actor “C.K. Nagesh” or the theatre “Nagesh theatre” have to be immediately withdrawn. Advertisement of the movie shall not be on the basis of the popularity of the actor “C.K. Nagesh” or “Nagesh theatre”, the judge added.

The judge said on perusal of the script, it was seen that it has nothing to do with the character “Nagesh” or with Theatre “Nagesh theatre”. Even though the name “Nagesh” was familiar, popular in Tamil film, the word “Thiraiarangam” can be used by anyone, and there cannot be any injunction relating to the word “Thiraiarangam”. It was also to be mentioned that “Nagesh theatre” had been actually sold by the family in  2008 and it was not in existence as a theatre.  There cannot be an order of injunction as against the producer and director from using the name Nagesh Thiraiarangam. “Nagesh” was a pronoun and there cannot be exclu-sivity for the same. There had been instances of films like Shivaji the Boss using the name of the erstwhile actor. The Tamil Film Producers Council had also stated that the producer and director cannot be prevented from using the name Nagesh Thiraiarangam, the judge added.