Yash Raj Films dragged to Court for alleged copyright infringement in ‘Ladies v. Ricky Bahl’

In yet another case of its kind, the producers of “Naan Avan Illai”, a hit Tamil movie in 2007, filed a lawsuit against Yash Raj Chopra alleging that their recent release “Ladies v. Ricky Bahl” was infringing the copyright belonging to the former. The Tamil Movie in itself is a remake of a 1974 movie by the same name starring superstar – Gemini Ganesan. According to Wikipedia, the 1974 version was a remake of a 1962 Marathi film and play – “To Mee Navhech”. For its part the Marathi play was based on the real life episode involving a conman Madhav Kazi, who was prosecuted and convicted by the Sholapur Sessions Court for masquerading as different men and entrapping lovely ladies to marry him. Interesting bit of trivia here: The counsel for the prosecution was Mr.G.B.Shah, father of former Chief Justice of the Delhi and Madras High Courts, Justice A.P.Shah. Even more interesting, Mr. Sushilkumar Shinde (former Union Power Minister) was the Court peon in the Sholapur Court during the hearing of the case (read here). Kazi’s conviction was upheld by the Bombay HC. 

The lawsuit over ‘Ladies v. Ricky Bahl’, was heard by the Madras High Court on 8th December, 2011 i.e. just a day before the date of worldwide theatrical release and Justice Vinod Sharma refused to grant the plaintiffs an ex-parte injunction. While the plaintiffs were represented by Advocate Jerome Pushparaj, the Defendants Yash Raj Films were represented by Senior Advocate Mr. Arvind Datar who was briefed by Economic Laws Practice, Mr. Karthik Sundaram and Mr. Ananth Padmanabhan. 

Such claims of copyright infringement against big-banner Bollywood movies have become routine these days and the only possible difference in this case is the fact that this time Bollywood has been sued by an outsider. (Yes! Tamil movies are not a part of Bollywood!) The story lines of “Naan Avan Illai” & ‘Ladies v. Ricky Bahl’ can be read over here and here on Wikipedia and though both movies revolve around ‘conmen’ who seduce and then dupe unsuspecting women, the story lines of both movies appear to be quite different. The Tamil movie appears to be more of a court-room drama, while the promotional video of the Bollywood movie does not seem to indicate any court room drama. At least, that’s the impression that one gets from the promos and Wikipedia entries. I’ll admit to the fact that I’m yet to see either one of these movies.