Director R Balki has dismissed allegations of plagiarism against his movie Pad Man as “silly” and “foolish”. Writer Ripu Daman Jaiswal has claimed that the filmmakers copied 11 scenes, including significant dialogue, from a script written by him. “That’s so foolish. After every film, some people foolishly make these claims,” Balki told PTI.
A fictionalised account of low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturer Arunachalam Muruganantham, Pad Man stars Akshay Kumar and has been produced by Twinkle Khanna’s Mrs Funnybones Movies and Sony Pictures India. The screenplay is by Balki and Swanand Kirkire. “My film is an official biography of Muruganantham. Is he accusing Muruganantham of leading a life that has been copied from his writing? That’s so silly,” Balki said.
Two months ago, Jaiswal had shared a post on Facebook, claiming that he had sent the synopsis of his script to Dharma Productions creative head Ryan Stephen on December 9, 2016. The script was registered with the Screen Writer’s Association on December 5, 2016. Jaiswal claimed that he heard that Khanna was producing a film based on the life of Muruganantham 10 days after he e-mailed the script.
“I was completely devastated but I couldn’t have point the allegation at that time because Twinkle Khanna has said that they were making a film on his life,” Jaiswal wrote in the post. “And I hadn’t written a film on his life... I have taken the subject and created my own fictional world around that subject.”
In tweets on Saturday, Jaiswal attached a copy of his script, claiming that dialogue had been lifted from his script, including the line comparing Akshay Kumar’s character to Super-Man and Batman. Jaiswal has filed a police complaint against the movie’s producers.
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