A magistrate court in Aurangabad recently discharged filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra from a criminal copyright infringement case initiated by a script writer in 2008. Writer Mushtaq Mohsin had filed a case against producer Ronnie Screwvala and director Mehra, accusing them of using his script titled ‘Inquilab’, for their film, Rang De Basanti, released in 2006.
Mohsin claimed that he had discussed his script with Rakeysh Mehra and had given the entire literature of his script to the filmmaker. He said in his complaint that he was surprised to see that the same was used in Rang De Basanti and added that this amounted to copyright violation/infringement.
Judicial magistrate first class V.H. Khedkar relied on an earlier order by the Aurangabad sessions court which discharged Ronnie Screwvala, the producer of Rang De Basanti, from the case. Rakeysh Mehra had moved his discharge plea before the magistrate soon after the sessions court’s order in Screwvala’s matter. Khedkar observed that the sessions court had allowed Ronnie Screwvala’s revision plea without distinguishing the role of accused no. 2 (Screwvala) from present accused (Mehra), and that the order had not been challenged in a high court. Hence the observations made by the sessions court were binding on the lower court.