At a time when Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is trending for its romantic Hans Mat Pagli duet song, a copyright issue has been filed against the film, fresh reports suggest. Director Praveen Vyas has sued the makers of the film for allegedly copying the plot and scenes from his award-winning documentary Manini, according to a Mumbai Mirror report.
The filmmaker has sent a legal notice and a cease and desist notice to the makers of the film. Praveen’s Manini also revolves around the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and hence, he has alleged that several scenes and dialogues Akshay and Bhumi's film are a direct copy of his documentary.
Speaking to the publication, the director said, "Manini follows the female protagonist as she protests against lack of a toilet in her marital home on the first night of her marriage after female relatives wake her up before sunrise to tend to nature's call in an open field. The scenes in Toilet: Ek Prem Katha's trailer shows the same interaction between characters”.
Vyas said that he and his screenplay writer, Shanker Arnimesh, were both shocked that their "novel" plot and "unique" characters have been replicated in Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. Talking about the legal notice sent to the film's production and distribution company, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, he said, "Since they have denied all our allegations and refused to monetarily compensate us for the origin of idea and script, we will now be fighting this in court."
However, the team of Toilet: Ek Prerm Katha has denied any sort of allegations. Shital Bhatia, co-producer and of the film and co-founder of Friday Filmworks said, “These allegations are baseless and border on harassment. The script of our film has been registered under our writers’ names, Siddharth and Garima, with the authorised industry association since 2013. Furthermore, the film has been in the public domain through various news stories since July 2015. We firmly deny all the claims made by this gentleman who is obviously misled. It is sad that genuine producers have become soft targets for this kind of a nuisance.” Toilet: EK Prem Katha is all set to release on August 11.
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