Telangana High Court Declines To Quash Proceedings Against Film Director & Screenwriter Kortala Siva In 'Srimanthudu' Copyright Infringement Case

The Telangana High Court has declined to quash proceedings against prominent Indian Film Director and Screenwriter, Kortala Siva in a copyright infringement case regarding the movie 'Srimanthudu'.

The complaint was lodged by poet and novelist R.D. Wilison @ Sarath Chandra who claimed that the movie was a copy of his novel 'Chachhentha Prema'.

“A reading of the complaint would reflect that prima facie it is not only the concept which was copied but also the story line of the Novel. Making minor changes and copying the main story, will not make it as his own creation and thought process. Since both the story in the movie and also the Novel of the complainant were compared by eight prominent writers and their opinion was that the movie was a copy of the novel, it cannot be said that there is no infringement of copyright,” Justice K Surender held. 

In the complaint, Sarath Chandra contended that Kortala Siva (A1) claimed to be the director, writer, and screenplay writer of the movie that was produced by Yerneni Naveen, (A2). It was further contended that Kortala Siva, Yerneni Naveen along with Mahesh Babu Entertainment Pvt. Ltd (arrayed as A3) had plans to remake the movie in Hindi and release the same in Bollywood.

The Complainant approached the trial Court for an injunction against the remake of the movie in Hindi and also preferred a complaint before the Magistrate under section 63 of the Copyright and sections 420, 468, and 471 of IPC. The Magistrate took cognizance of the matter under section 63 of the Copyright Act and Section 420 r/w.120-B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

Three quashing petitions were filed by the three accused a separate petition was also filed by the defacto-complainant seeking direction on the Court below to take cognizance of the offences committed by the accused under Sections 420, 468, 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

While the bench declined to quash the proceedings against Film Writer Kortala Siva, who claimed to be the story writer for the movie; proceedings against the other two accused have been quashed holding that although they were involved in producing the movie, it was only A1 who claimed to be the 'Director', 'Writer' and the 'screenplay writer' of the movie. It was held:

“It cannot be said that there was any criminal conspiracy amongst A1, A2 and A3. Though, A2 and A3 were involved in the process of producing the movie, no criminal intention can be attributed to A2 and A3 when A1 himself claimed that he was the writer of the story. An assumption that A2 and A3 in conspiracy with A1 made the movie, the same cannot form basis to continue criminal prosecution. Though, criminal conspiracies are hatched in secrecy, in the present case, when the Producer invested such huge amounts in the movie and pays A1 for directing, writing the story and also writing the screenplay for the movie, proceedings cannot be permitted to continue on assumption of the complainant against A2 and A3.”

The complainant contended that his book Chachhentha Prema sold over 2 lakh copies and was published in the “Swathi” Magazine in the year 2012 and selected as one of the best novels.

He further contended that the book dealt with issues of love between Hero and Heroine who meet in college and whose fathers once used to fight for the same cause, i.e., the social problems faced by the villagers when the displacement of villages takes place on account of the small landlords colluding with big contractors for the construction of a project.

In his Novel, the complainant had suggested a formula of 'land for land' which was submerged in the project and lost by the farmers.

In 2015, the movie Srimanthudu was released staring Mahesh Babu and Sruthi Hasan and the complainant was shocked to see that the movie had not only copied the idea of “land for land” it had copied the entire storyline, including the characters, their roles, etc, with a few minor changes.

In the movie, the hero and heroine meet in college, and find out that their fathers used to be friends and worked together to fight for the rights of displaced villagers on account of collusion between landlords and big contractors and the hero goes back to fight for the right of the villagers.

In October 2015, the complainant approached the Telugu Cine Writers' Association to evaluate whether the movie was a copy of his book, and the Association unanimously held in his favour.

Per contra, the counsel on behalf of the accused contended that even assuming without conceding that the idea was copied, it would not amount to copyright infringement.

Justice Surender however, was not inclined to allow the petition filed by the defacto complaint for directions to add the offence of cheating and forgery to the pending complaint.

It was held that to attract the offence of cheating “there has to be an act of deception pursuant to which the person deceived should have delivered the property or deliberately caused wrongful loss” and that when the copyright infringement was already being decided, the question of forgery did not arise.

Accordingly, the petitions for quashing proceedings were partially allowed, with the charges being dropped against A2 and A3, but the Copyright infringement case against Kortala Siva (A1) being allowed to continue. 

Crlp 1728 of 2018 & Batch

Counsel for defacto complainant: Challa Ajay Kumar

Counsel for A1: K.Siddharth Rao

Counsel for A2 & A3: Naveen Kumar

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