Hrithik Roshan is yet to complete the shooting of his next release "Mohenjo Daro" and the movie has already landed in legal trouble.
Filmmaker Akashaditya Lama, who penned TV shows like "Kumkum" and "Kkusum", has claimed that the makers of "Mohenjo Daro" stole the storyline of the film from him.
Lama has sent a legal notice to UTV Films and Disney India, director Ashutosh Gowariker and Hrithik Roshan seeking a stay on the film's production and release, reports Mumbai Mirror
Lama said that he came up with the story idea in 1995 when he was in studying in Gwalior. In 2003, he shared the idea with editor Ballu (Jaswinder) Saluja, who was an associate of Ashutosh Gowariker.
"I sent him (Gowariker) a handwritten script through Saluja which he returned after four days saying that he had just directed a period movie (Lagaan) and didn't wish to make another one immediately," Lama told Mirror.
Lama also registered the title of his script twice under the Copyrights Act with Ministry of Human Resources Development. In 2007, he registered the title "Saamrajya" and in 2010, he re-registered the script with title "Mohenjodaro".
"I was surprised to learn that Gowariker had already commenced his film's pre-production. After re-confirming from several sources that his Mohenjo Daro is very similar to my script, I sent him another mail on July 18, 2014, reminding him about the script I had sent to him in 2002-2003," Lama informed.
Lama alleges that due to the Gowariker's movie, he is facing financial trouble as the financers of his play "Mohenjodaro", which became a huge success, backed out.
"After Ashutosh Gowariker announced his film, our financier backed out. It is causing us tremendous financial loss as well as hampering our credibility in the trade," he said.
However, Gowariker's lawyers said that his client returned the script to Ballu Saluja without reading it.
"Our client states that they had received a script from Mr Ballu Saluja in 2003. However, out client returned the script to Mr Ballu Saluja immediately without reading the same. Our client denies that your client's script was returned by our client to Mr Ballu Saluja because they were not intending to make a historical film," Gowariker's lawyers said.
