PK in hot water as Indian writer sues makers for plagiarism

Published January 21, 2015
Aamir Khan in a still from the film.
Aamir Khan in a still from the film.

It may have crossed the INR600 crore mark, but Aamir Khan’s PK has landed itself in yet another controversy as the Delhi High Court issued a notice to its filmmakers regarding plagiarism, reported NDTV.

Indian author Kapil Isapuri accused the director of plagiarising different scenes from his novel, ‘Farishta’ and filed a plea against the film.

Also read: 'PK' – The most important film to watch in 2014

Directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the film questions core beliefs of different religions, a theme which raised a hue and cry post-release. The court had also rejected a plea regarding a ban of the film.

Hirani, Chopra and scriptwriter, Abhijat Joshi have received notices issued by Justice Najmi Waziri seeking their response by April 16.

Also read: Aamir Khan's 'PK' thrives in Pakistan

Isapuri has accused the filmmakers, that they had "stolen the characters, expression of ideas, scenes (sequences) from the novel" and has demanded INR1 crore as castigatory charges.

His advocate, Jyotika Kalra alleged that the film’s characters and sequences were stolen by Joshi and other filmmakers from the Hindi-novel 'Farishta'.

According to the plea, in his novel, Isapuri “has criticised blind following of so-called godmen" as well as that "profession of religion is not natural but is man-made and artificial" and "in a group of people nobody can identify their respective religion".

Also read: PK: Not quite out of this world

"The novel has many more such situations which have been very cleverly copied by the defendants in the film by making minor changes and insignificant variations," the petition added.

Addressing a press conference, the author said: “I am sorry that I watched PK pretty late since its release on December 19. I watched the film on January 1 and was completely taken aback when I saw that many scenes in the film were inspired from my latest novel 'Farishta'.”

Earlier on, Indian director Anurag Basu had also been accused of directly copying scenes for his film Barfi which was chosen for participation in Academy nominations. Basu had defended himself by declaring that he was inspired by multiple Hollywood directors, hence his films reflected their work.

PK has not only garnered praises in India but was able to rake approximately Rs18 crore in Pakistan.

Fans reacted to the news about the plagiarism charges on Twitter:

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