Director Sujoy Ghosh Approaches Supreme Court To Quash Copyright Infringement Case Over "Kahaani 2" Film Script

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (July 2) issued notice on a petition filed by national award-winning scriptwriter and director Sujoy Ghosh seeking to quash a criminal case filed under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957, on the allegation that his movie "Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh" was based on a stolen script.

A bench comprising Justice PS Narasimha and Justice R Mahadevan, while issuing notice to the State of Jharkhand and the complainant, allowed exemption to Ghosh from personal appearance before the Magistrate in the proceedings.

The Special Leave Petition was filed challenging the order of the Jharkhand High Court, which dismissed the petition filed by Ghosh under Section 482 CrPC seeking to quash the criminal proceedings.

The complaint was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hazaribagh, by Umesh Prasad Mehta, who alleged that the script of "Kahaani 2", a Vidya Balan starrer released as a sequel to the superhit movie "Kahaani", infringed the copyright of his script titled "Sabak". The complainant alleged that he had handed over the script of "Sabak" to Ghosh in June 2015 to get a recommendation letter from him to register the script with a film producer organisation. According to the complainant, his script was used to make the film "Kahaani 2", released in December 2016. Alleging that this amounted to the offence of copyright infringement as per Section 63, he filed the complaint.

Ghosh denied the allegations, claiming that he had started writing the script of "Kahaani 2" in November 2012 and had registered the final draft with the Screen Writers Association in December 2013. He denied meeting the complainant at all or receiving his script.

The High Court refused to quash the proceedings, observing that the merits of the contentions can be decided only in a trial.

Before the Supreme Court, Ghosh contended that the Magistrate issued the summoning order mechanically, without even a prima facie consideration, let alone a comparison, of both the scripts to ascertain if they were similar. The complaint did not produce the script of "Kahaani", and the Magistrate, without any consideration, straightaway issued the summons, he argued.

"The Impugned Order sets a dangerous precedent where criminal process against an honest film-maker can be initiated on the basis of self-serving allegations without making out any case of copyright infringement. This is contrary to the established legal principles regarding issuance of process under Section 200-204 of the CrPC," the petition stated, contending that the complaint was nothing but a tool of harassment.

When the script of "Kahaani 2" was registered two years before the registration of the script of "Sabak", there cannot be any basis for the allegation of copyright infringement, he contended. He also raised the issue of territorial jurisdiction, contending that the complaint was not maintainable at Hazaribagh as the alleged offence took place completely in Mumbai.

It was argued that the High Court did not properly exercise its jurisdiction as it failed to quash a "frivolous complaint containing patently absurd and inherently improbable allegations."

Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave assisted by Advocate-on-Record Anu Shrivastava appeared for the petitioner.

Case : Sujoy Ghosh v. State of Jharkhand | SLP(Crl) No. 9452/2025