A report on the first court hearing after writer-filmmaker Akashaditya Lama's copyright violation allegations over the Mohenjo Daro script
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 18, 2015)
Mirror (December 16) was the first to report that writer-filmmaker Akashaditya Lamais moving court against Ashutosh Gowariker's Mohenjo Daro, claiming rights over the film's story idea. At the first hearing on December 17 at the City Civil Court, Mirror has learnt that the lawyers representing Gowariker, producers UTV Films and Disney India, appeared in front of judge SB Jagtap in court room number 4 but leading man Hrithik Roshan's (who received Lama's legal notice too) legal representative was conspicuous by his absence. "On the basis of the allegations made by my client Akashaditya Lama that Mr Ashutosh Gowariker has stolen his story, we extended a proposal to exchange each other's scripts to verify if there was any similarity in the content. However, Mr Gowariker's lawyers refused to comply and raises doubts of their malicious intent," Lama's lawyer, Sunil Shukla, explained. The next hearing is on December 21.
"We want the makers to stop shooting. We will fight till the end," Lama told Mirror from the court. He further added that they had also challenged Gowariker's lawyers on the climax of his previous historical romance, Jodhaa Akbar, which he alleges was lifted from the climax of Lama's original Mohenjodaro script.
"My lawyer challenged them to present evidence from any historical document that mentions Akbar involved in one-on-one combat with Sharifuddin Hussain, to which, Ashutosh's lawyer said, 'Please don't challenge me, I'm not Gowariker,'" Lama added.
In 2003, Akashaditya had shared his handwritten Mohenjo Daro script with his friend, editor Ballu (Jaswinder) Saluja, an associate of Ashutosh Gowariker, who had sketched it out to the Swades maker, who then wanted to read it. But Ashutosh later returned the same after four days saying that he had just directed a period movie (Lagaan) and didn't wish to make another one immediately.