Police complaint regarding plagiarism filed against Ayushmann Khurrana in ‘Bala’.

Bala is an upcoming film starring Ayushmann Khurrana which is directed by Stree fame Amar Kaushik. The shooting of the film was slated recently but trouble has emerged for the makers.

Writer and assistant director Kamal Kant Chandra has filed a police complaint accusing Ayushmann Khurrana, director Amar Kaushik and producer Dinesh Vijan for starting the shoot of Bala despite his objections over the script of the film.

Kamal Kant has stated that he had registered the script of the tales of a balding man much before Ayushmann’s film was announced. 

Now, he has filed a police complaint against the makers under Section 420 (cheating) and 406 (breach of trust). Kamal has added the cheating charge because according to him, Kaushik and Khurrana started the shooting of the film before the court’s verdict came out. 

In an interview to Mid-day, Kamal stated that in the last hearing on 19 April, Ayushmann and his team’s lawyer falsely mentioned that the film is in the scripting stage.

“It’s wrong to start shooting before the court has given its verdict. At the last hearing, they said that they would take time to develop the script. How did they start shooting in 15 days? This means they gave a misleading picture to the court. I approached the vacation bench four days ago, but they stated that I should wait for the next hearing on June 10. But the makers might finish [a chunk of] the film by then and argue that since a lot of money is at stake, the court should rule in their favor.”

Kamal says that he has messages from Ayushmann from 2017 which prove that the actor showed interest in the idea. “I registered my concept with the Screen Writers’ Association in 2016 while their script has been registered in 2018.”

Ayushmann’s legal representative issued a statement that said, “What has been communicated to you is a mala fide distortion of actual facts especially with regard to the proceedings of April 9, 2019. In fact, Mr. Chandra also moved the Bombay High court in vacation (May 29) in this regard and was not granted any relief. In any event, as the matter is sub-judice and since the next date of hearing is June 10, 2019, we are not commenting any further. Our script is original and we will show that to the court when the matter comes up.”