Writer Aarur Tamilnadan had filed a legal suit ten years ago, accusing Enthiran director S Shankar and producer Kalanithi Maran of Sun Pictures for plagiarizing his content. He accused both of them of violating the Copyright Act and of cheating under Section 420 of the IPC.
When this case came up for hearing at the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, Justice Pugazhendi absolved Kalanithi Maran of all charges as he was in no way connected with the story. However, the court refused to quash the proceedings against director Shankar.
The Business Standard has reported the judgment as: “So far as Kalanithi Maran is concerned, he is a mere producer and has nothing to do with the story and, hence, the criminal proceedings under the Copyright Act and the proceedings under IPC section 420 against him are quashed.”
The contention of the petitioner was that the story of Enthiran is similar to his short story Jugiba. The judge, in his order, stated that the case does not come under the purview of Section 420 IPC but will attract the provisions under the Copyright Act. Also, the case has been transferred to the Egmore Court in Chennai for further proceedings.
Enthiran is a science fiction action film that was released in the year 2010. The film was written and directed by S Shankar. The film had Superstar Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai in lead roles with Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Karunas in supporting roles. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by AR Rahman, while the dialogues were written by Madhan Karky, cinematography by R Rathnavelu, editing by Anthony and art direction by Sabu Cyril.
Upon its release, Enthiran turned out to be a smash hit, breaking a few box office records.
(Content provided by Digital Native)