Kerala court orders filmmaker Major Ravi to pay ₹30 lakh compensation for plagiarising screenplay of 'Karmayodha'

A commercial court in Kerala has held that the screenplay of the Malayalam film 'Karmayodha' directed by Major AK Raveendran aka Major Ravi was plagiarised [Reji Mathew v Major AK Raveendran & ors]

Hence, the Court directed Major Ravi to pay ₹30 lakh as compensation to writer Reji Mathew who filed the copyright suit alleging that his original story, screenplay and dialogues were used in the movie without his consent and the film was released without giving him any credit or renumeration.

The judgment was delivered on November 21 by Kottayam Commercial Court Judge Manish DA who found that Mathew was able to establish authorship over the story, screenplay and dialogues that were later used in the movie.

"The original script and screenplay of the movie Karmayodha or its copy were not produced by the defendants on their side. A mere perusal of Ext.B2 and Ext.A8 would show that there is apparent similarity in the scenes contained in both documents. The defendants have no specific case that there is no similarity at all for any of the scenes contained in Exts.A8 and A10 with the movie directed by DW1. DW2 has also admitted such similarities. Further, there is also similarity for many characters contained in the movie and in Exts A8 and A10," the Court observed.

The similarities between Mathew's original work and the film were not merely incidental but amounted to substantial copying, the Court ruled.

The suit was filed by Mathew alleging that Major Ravi had approached him in 2011 to develop a screenplay on the subject of woman trafficking.

After Mathew completed the work and shared the script and screenplay with the director of the movie along with suggested titles including 'Karmayodha, the project was stalled abruptly.

He later came across media reports that a film based on the same storyline had gone into production with Major Ravi crediting himself as the writer of the movie and which was eventually released in the year 2012 as 'Karmayodha'.

After a detailed trial spanning over a decade, the Court on analysing the evidence and comparing the two screenplays, found that there were substantial similarities in the characters, narrative and even scene construction.

It rejected Ravi's claim that the film was independently developed from a one-line story, and held that the similarities went beyond coincidence.

The Court further observed that copyright law protected the expression of an idea and not just the final cinematograph film and while the director or producer may own the copyright over the film, the author of the literary work retained independent copyright unless the work is validly assigned to another in writing.

"The defendants have violated the authorship and copyright of the plaintiff in his literary work. It is held that the plaintiff is the owner of the authorship right and copyright of the story, script and screenplay of the movie Karmayodha. He is entitled for a declaration as such," the Court observed.

Thus, the Court declared Mathew as the absolute owner of the authorship and copyright over the story, script and screenplay of the film 'Karmayodha'.

The Court also permanently restrained Ravi and other defendants from exhibiting, remaking, dubbing, reproducing the film or its content without attributing authorship to Ravi and also barred the use of any publicity materials excluding his name.

Pertinently, Major Ravi and the producer Haneef Muhammed were directed to jointly pay ₹30 lakh as compensation to Mathew within two months.

The plaintiff, Reji Mathew was represented by advocates Jojo Thomas and Sachin Sebastian.

Major Ravi was represented by advocates George V Thomas.

Advocate PK Babu appeared for the producer, while advocates Premkumar M and Jayakrishnan R appeared for the additional defendants.

[Read Judgment]