Plea in HC accuses ‘PK’ makers of plagiarism, seeks Rs 1 crore

He has sought punitive damages of Rs one crore from the makers along with credit for his work.

In his plea filed through advocate Jyotika Kalra, Isapuri has claimed that in his novel he “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”.

He has also claimed that various other issues raised by the movie have been “copied” from his book.

“That 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 has said.

“I am sorry that I watched ‘PK’ pretty late from 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 by my latest novel ‘Farishta’,” Isapuri told a press conference here.

‘PK’, starring Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Sanjay Dutt and Sushant Singh Rajput in pivotal roles, is a satire on godmen.

It narrates the story of an alien (Aamir) who comes to Earth on a research mission and befriends a television journalist Jagat (Anushka) and questions religious dogmas and superstitions.

The film, which broke the box office records with over Rs 600 crore global business, had earlier rankled the right wing organisations, who had demanded a ban on the movie.

Earlier, the high court while dismissing a PIL seeking ban on the movie had said that there was an “instance of a growing tendency in the country of intolerance and which tendency has to be nipped in the bud and unless done so, is likely to spread like wild fire and which the country can ill -afford”.

The observation had come on the PIL filed by a local priest seeking directions to delete alleged “objectionable” scenes from the movie ‘PK’ claiming that the contents of the film have hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

In his petition, Isapuri has said scenes like discussions between Anushka and her parents regarding inter-religious marriage, broadcasting insignificant programmes for raising TRP by media and how an attire can confuse people of a person’s religion are among the sequences that have been taken from his novel.

“Around 17 prominent scenes in the film have been taken from my book, which got published last year. I completed my novel in 2009 and gave it to various publications in Delhi and Lucknow for publishing it. The story must have leaked from there,” the writer claimed.

“The overall production of the film shows reproduction of the expression of ideas, scenes and characters of the novel of plaintiff (Isapuri) was not possible without having the access to the novel of the plaintiff.

“As the typed copies of the novel were available since 2009 and since 2013 novel was available in the market as such there was every opportunity for the film makers to copy the novel,” the petition has said.

The makers of ‘PK’ have not commented on the issue so far. This is not the first time Hirani has faced trouble from a writer.

Chetan Bhagat had accused the makers of ‘3 Idiots’ of not giving him proper credit for ‘Five Point Someone’, which became the basis for the movie.