A poster from the movie Bigil
The Madras High Court on Tuesday (September 3, 2024) ordered notices to popular film director Atlee, production firm AGS Entertainment Private Limited, and its executive director Archana Kalpathi in a case pertaining to an alleged theft of script for actor Vijay-starrer ‘Bigil.’
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sundar and R. Sakthivel ordered issuance of notices on petitions filed by scriptwriter Amjath Meeran to condone the delay of 73 days in preferring three appeals against the dismissal of his three applications by a single judge.
The petitioner told the Bench that he had filed a civil suit before the High Court in 2019 – when the Tamil movie was released – seeking a declaration that the script of ‘Bigil’ belonged to him. He had sought to appoint an advocate commissioner to quantity the amount of “copying/stealing” allegedly done by the defendants.
Claiming that a script written by him titled ‘Brasil’ had been stolen to make ‘Bigil,’ the petitioner had also sought a direction to the defendants to pay him an initial compensation of ₹10 lakh besides further compensation as determined by the court.
In 2023, the petitioner had filed three applications urging the court to accept additional documents sought to be let in as evidence in his suit and to take on file a 2015 certificate issued by the Writers Guild of America (West) for his script.
The petitioner also sought permission to let in further oral evidence in support of his suit. He told the court that the 2015 certificate was highly essential to prove his case, but he could not produce it in 2019 as it was not with him at the time.
The counter-affidavit
Mr. Atlee, meanwhile, filed a common counter-affidavit to all the three applications, accusing the plaintiff of having filed the case with false, self-serving, and concocted statements. He alleged the case had been filed only to extract money from him.
The director said the three applications could not be allowed after the completion of the trial and at a stage when the suit was ready for commencement of final arguments. He said the applications had been filed only to fill the lacunae in the evidence.
Mr. Atlee also said he had registered a 65-page script of ‘Bigil’ with the South Indian Film Writers’ Association on July 4, 2018, and then registered a 242-page detailed script with screenplay and dialogues on October 4, 2018, before commencing the shoot.
He said the movie written and directed by him was tentatively titled ‘Vaathiyar’ and then ‘Thalapathy 63’ before finally getting released as ‘Bigil’ on October 26, 2019. The director stated the plaintiff had rushed to the court immediately after the release of the trailer.
Wondering why the 2015 certificate was not produced while filing the suit in 2019, Mr. Atlee said the plaintiff’s name did not find place on the website of Writers Guild of America (West) and therefore, the authenticity of the certificate itself was questionable.
In their joint counter affidavit, AGS Entertainment and Ms. Kalpathi told the court that permitting the plaintiff to let in additional evidence would delay the disposal of the suit and that he should not be allowed to abuse the process of the court.
After hearing all of them, Justice P. Velmurugan allowed all three applications on April 8, 2024, on the condition that the plaintiff must pay costs of ₹1 lakh each to Mr. Atlee, AGS Entertainment, and Ms. Kalpathi on or before April 25 and report compliance on April 26.
However, on April 26, when it was brought his notice that the costs had not been paid, the judge dismissed all the three applications, leading to the filing of the present appeals, along with petitions to condone the delay of 73 days in filing them.