Non-bailable warrant issued against Shankar over ‘Enthiran’ plagiarism case

The director had been accused of copying the film’s story from writer Arur Tamilnadan

shankar-enthiran-wkim Director Shankar at the trailer launch of '2.0' | Dani Charles, Silverscreen Media Inc via Wikimedia Commons

An Egmore court has issued a non-bailable warrant against film director S. Shankar over a case of plagiarism with regard to his movie, the Rajinikanth-starrer Enthiran.

The Egmore Metropolitan Magistrate Court II, which has adjourned the case to February 19, issued the warrant after Shankar failed to appear before the court several times in the matter.

Writer Arur Tamilnadan had claimed that the story of Enthiran was written by him, and filed a case of plagiarism against the filmmaker soon after the release of the movie. Tamilnadan alleged that Shankar copied his story titled Jiguba, in violation of the Copyright Act, 1957. He accused the filmmaker and producers of earning huge monetary gains from his story.

Tamilnadan had published his story in the Tamil magazine Iniya Udayam in 1996. It was further published as a novel titled Tik Tik Deepika in 2007.

The case has been going on for several years.

Last year, Shankar had moved the Supreme Court to quash the case after the Madras High Court rejected his petition for the same. However, the apex court ruled against Shankar when the counsel for the petitioner pointed out 29 similarities between Tamilnadan’s story and the film.

The Tamil blockbuster movie Enthiran, which starred Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, is about a scientist Vaseegaran, who builds a robot that is programmed to feel emotions. But chaos reigns after the robot, named Chitti, falls in love with Vaseegaran’s girlfriend. It was dubbed and released in other languages as well.

Enthiran became the highest-grossing Indian film after its release in 2010 and went on to win two National Film Awards.

The film was followed by a sequel titled 2.0 in 2018, with Rajinikanth reprising his roles as Vaseegaran and Chitti, alongside Amy Jackson and Akshay Kumar.