PLAGIARISM IS an old story in Bollywood. But, when heavy weights are publicly accused of copying tunes and lifting stories it becomes a public scandal! Big time filmmaker, Rakesh Roshan, recently had to pay a huge price of Rs2 crores to Ram Sampath for plagiarism of the latter’s jingle for his film Krazzy 4.
Today, Amit Khan has declared that his story, has been lifted by the makers of the most talked about film of the year, Singh Is Kinng.
He wants credit for the story of the film and a compensation of Rs5 crores.
Amit Khan is a film writer and a novelist who has written over 90 books. He has filed a case with the Film Writers’ Association, against Akshay Kumar and Anees Bazmee for cheating, fraud and breach of trust.
He claims that his story has been lifted from his book titled ‘Boss’.
The book had first been published in 1996 and the second addition was published three years ago. Khan further claims that he had himself presented the book to Akshay Kumar during the making of Dhadkhan.
Khan had earlier worked with Bazmee on Karz-The Burden of Truth as his additional screenplay writer.
Khan claims that when he saw Singh Is Kinng, he realised that this was his story and immediately got in touch with Bazmee to voice his complaint. Bazmee told him that he would meet him for a talk but never called back.
Says an industry insider, “What probably annoyed Amit Khan is the indifference shown to him by Bazmee.
After all the two have worked together. One cannot understand why people do not give the complainants a hearing. Even in the Rakesh Roshan case, everything could have been settled if they had sat down to discuss the problem. Ram Sampath, an ad song writer and music composer, who had sued the Roshans for plagiarising his jingle ‘The Trump’, had first contacted them to have a talk. But when he got no response he took them straight to court.
A desperate Rakesh Roshan had no other option than to dole out a sum of Rs2 crore as settlement and compensation.”
Anees Bazmee gave a statement saying, “This is not something new. I have been in this industry for the past 33 years and no one has ever made such allegations against me. I have not even seen the novel he is talking about.”
The president of the Film Writers’ Association confirmed Amit Khan’s complaint saying the case will be taken up by the dispute committee after which notices will be sent to the respective parties against whom Khan has made allegations.
So now one will have to await the jurisdiction by the Writer’s Association. To find out whether Singh Is Kinng is a copy of Khan’s book or an original by Bazmee!