City Court Issues Stay On Ekta Kapoor Show Lock Upp

The City Civil Court has issued an ad-interim injunction on the release of an upcoming show named Lock Upp hosted by Kangana Ranaut.

The order was passed after a hearing and perusal of the documents submitted by the petitioner Sanober Baig, who claims to be the sole rightholder of the story and the script of the concept, "The Jail".

The court also took on record the video clip of the trailer of Lock Upp, and concluded that it appeared similar.

Since the show is to be released on February 27, the court passed the order with an urgent notice prohibiting the exhibition of the show on any media.

The petitioner claimed that the concept was owned by Pride Media through its proprietor (Baig herself), and was written by Shaantanu Ray and Sheershak Anand and registered under the Copyright Act on March 27, 2018.

It was registered at the Film Writers' Association.

In his petition, Baig described how the concept was developed, and also explained the concept itself in detail. He also gave the details of the money invested by him in the various stages of the concept development.

Commenting on the situation, he said, "When I saw the promo of the said show I was in shock. I have been in touch with Abhishek Rege from Endemol Shine for a long time and had several meetings about the subject in Hyderabad. He had promised that we would get going once the market got better. The show is not just similar to our concept, it is an absolute copy of the same. I could not believe that somebody could plagiarise the concept to such an extent. We have prayed the court to rule it as an infringement of our copyright, and have got a stay order."

"If the infringement is proved, the defendant production houses will be liable for consequences under sections 51 and 52 of the Copyright Act. I connected with the respective companies and requested them not to go ahead with the concept. But they turned a deaf ear and claimed that they had every right to stream as per the schedule. I had no option but to seek redressal from the judiciary. The notice has been served to all the parties involved, and we have the acknowledgment of the same. If the show gets aired it'll be contempt of the court. I have full faith in the judiciary and am sure that justice will be served," Baig added.