Today, On 2nd July, The Supreme Court granted relief to filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh in the Kahaani 2 copyright case, exempting him from appearing before the trial court and directing the respondents to file their reply to his plea.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court issued a notice regarding a petition filed by filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh, who is seeking to dismiss criminal proceedings against him for alleged copyright infringement related to his 2016 film Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh.
A bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and R Mahadevan ordered that no coercive actions be taken against Ghosh and exempted him from appearing personally before the Magistrate while the proceedings are ongoing.
The Court was addressing Ghosh’s appeal against a Jharkhand High Court ruling that had declined to quash the criminal case filed against him under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957, which penalizes copyright infringement.
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The complaint was lodged by Umesh Prasad Mehta, who contends that the script of Kahaani 2 was copied from his own work titled Sabak. He alleged that he had provided the script to Ghosh in June 2015 to obtain a recommendation letter for registration and claimed that the material was subsequently used without his consent in the Vidya Balan-starring film, which was released in December 2016.
According to Mehta, the film constitutes a reproduction of his work and amounts to theft of his creative content.
Following his complaint, the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Hazaribagh recorded statements and issued summons to Ghosh on June 7, 2018, after determining that a prima facie case of copyright infringement existed.
Ghosh sought to quash the proceedings under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure at the Jharkhand High Court. He maintained that the complaint was baseless and that he had neither met Mehta nor received any script from him.
He asserted that he began working on Kahaani 2 in 2012 and registered the final script with the Screen Writers Association by December 2013, prior to the alleged script exchange in 2015.
However, the High Court dismissed his plea on April 22, 2025, stating that it would not conduct a “mini-trial” at the quashing stage and that the issues raised could be addressed during the trial. The Court emphasized that it was not its role to evaluate the merits or compare the two scripts at this time.
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Before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, representing Ghosh, reiterated that the Magistrate issued the summoning order without comparing the scripts or applying proper legal reasoning. He argued that the complaint did not establish even a prima facie case and lacked supporting material.
Additionally, he questioned the territorial jurisdiction of the Hazaribagh court, noting that the entire production process occurred in Mumbai, making the complaint untenable in Jharkhand.
Following the Court’s notice, the case will proceed once the respondents file their counter affidavit.
Case Title: Sujoy Ghosh vs. The State of Jharkhand & Anr.
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