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Director Shankar opens up for the first time after getting arrest warrant: Check what he said!

By alagu, 02 February, 2021
Shankar, Enthiran, Rajinikanth

Days after having been surfaced with the reports that he has been issued with a non-bailable arrest warrant in a plagiarism case in connection to his movie 'Enthiran' -starred by Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai, director Shankar has on Monday opened up for the first time about the allegations and issued a statement in which he had claimed that the non-bailable warrant was false. 

What's the allegation against Shankar? Tamil writer Arur Tamilnadan has moved to the court by alleging that director Shankar had copied his story and directed 'Enthiran', which amounts to the violation of the Copyrights Act. According to reports, Arur Tamilnadan has written a story titled 'Jugiba', which was first published in April 1996 in the magazine called 'Iniya Udayam'. His story was re-published in 2007 in a novel under the title of 'Dhik Dhik Deepika' and Shankar's 'Enthiran' has got released in 2010. 

After watching the movie, Tamilnadan has filed a petition in the court in 2010 by alleging that Enthiran was his story and Shankar had reportedly copied it and directed the movie. In his petition, Tamilnadan has demanded Rs 1 crore from Shankar and Kalanithi Maran, who had bankrolled the movie and the petitioner pressed that Shankar's action of copying the story was punishable under the Copyrights Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 

Tamilnadan had filed his petition in 2010 and he has been battling legally against Shankar for a decade. However, Shankar didn't show up for the hearing for many years and the development against Shankar had shocked his fans and audience over the allegations of copying the story of what had become one of his super hit movies. When the matter came up in Madras High Court in 2019, Shankar's counsel had denied the allegations and the director had stayed off from the court. 

Tamilnadan's counsel had shown 29 similarities between the two stories in the court and said that the writer had conferred with the Kalaimamani award for his work. After showing the similarities, the High court refused to dismiss the case and continued the hearing. Amid the hearing, Shankar had moved his petition to the Supreme Court in 2021 and sought a directive of dismissing the case in the High Court by claiming that he had written the story even before Jugiba was published. However, the apex court had dismissed his petition and let the lower Court continue the proceedings.

Amid the hearing, the reports had confirmed that Shankar has been issued with the non-bailable arrest warrant on Saturday by the Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore. He was issued with a warrant for not appearing in the court for the hearing. While it had further shocked him, Shankar has on Monday released a statement and this is the first time that he had spoken about the allegations publicly. 

In his statement, Shankar claimed that the arrest warrant was false news. By citing that he was shocked to see false news about a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against him, he said, "My advocate Sai Kumaran has approached the court today (Monday) and brought this (warrant) to the Court's attention. The Judge had immediately confirmed that no warrant has been issued against me. The reference to any warrant has happened due to a technical issue in the process of the online court reporting, which is presently being corrected". 

Shankar further penned, "It's surprised to see the circulation of such news without appropriate checking. This matter has given my family and my well-wishers' unwanted stress. I'm dearly requesting every media to share my statement to make sure that no such false news will get spread". However, in irony to his statement, several media has released the court order in which Shankar has been issued with the non-bailable arrest warrant and many had raised questions that the court order can't be changed due to a technical glitch. 

 

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