Raabta wins, Magadheera withdraws

The makers of Raabta are finally heaving a sigh of relief. The film, with Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon in the lead, has been scheduled for release today, and the film team has staved off a possible stay on the release. The love saga, directed by Dinesh Vijan, was entangled in a legal controversy after the makers of the Telugu film Magadheera accused Raabta of plagiarism. The lawsuit was filed just days before the release.

“This was just unfair. At a time when we needed to concentrate on the promotion of the film, we had to rush to court to ensure that we could get the film released. How can anyone allege plagiarism without having seen a film at all? And that, too, just days before the release,” says Vijan.

T-series, the producers of Raabta, got their counsel to present their case in court and proved that the film hasn’t been copied from the Telugu film. Consequently, Allu Arvind, the producer of Magadheera, withdrew his case. “I had nothing to fear. I repeatedly offered to show the film to Allu Arvind but he just wasn’t willing to listen,” says Vijan.

Bhushan Kumar, the producer of Raabta, is quite understandably happy with the development. “We’ve been attempting to resolve this outside the court, but unfortunately that didn’t happen,” says Kumar, adding, “We’re lucky that we had the resources to fight this out, but a smaller filmmaker in a similar situation would’ve been completely finished. By going to court, we also wanted to make this point: people can’t do this to filmmakers.”

Raabta is releasing today, right on schedule.

T-SERIES, THE PRODUCERS OF RAABTA, PROVED THAT THE FILM HASN’T BEEN COPIED FROM THE TELUGU FILM

PHOTO: HTCS PHOTOS: YOGEN SHAH