Chennai: Three days after Madras high court imposed an exemplary cost of Rs 10,000 on ace film director S. Shankar for failure to appear before the court in connection with a civil litigation pending against him relating to his film ‘Enthiran’ starring superstar Rajinikanth, the court has posted the criminal petition against Shankar and Kalanidhi Maran of Sun TV, producer of the film, for final hearing to September 28.
Aarur Tamilnadan, a Tamil author, had approached the court eight years ago stating that ace director S. Shankar, MD Sun Pictures, Kalanidhi Maran and Sun Pictures Ltd made the film in 2010 based on his story published and registered in 1996.
In the petition, Tamilnadan submitted that he penned a robot story - Jugiba. This was first published in a Tamil magazine ‘Iniya Udayam’ in April 1996 and later the story was published as a novel ‘Thik Thik Theepika’ in 2007. The story line was registered on January 1, 1997 and protected under the provisions of Copyright Act 1957.
Tamilnandan said that he saw the ‘Enthiran’ film in October 2010 after its release and shocked to note that his story was copied by the film crew and made the move. The film was released in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and other languages and made a huge profit from various sources. In the petition he sought a damage of '1 crore from Shankar, Maran and Sun Pictures.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday before Justice M. Nirmal Kumar, counsel for the petitioner, K. Elangovan submitted that the criminal case has been pending for nearly eight years. The film crew copied the story from author’s story, which has been protected under Copy Right Act. He also produced a copy of the story and Copy Right. He prayed the court to order compensation/damage to the author. He said Shankar had not appeared before the court in connection with civil litigation filed against him relating to the same film and on September 3 court imposed him an exemplary cost of Rs 10,000.
Later, Justice M. Nirmal Kumar posted the matter to September 28 for final hearing.
