Assistant director Kamal Kant Chandra, who had dragged Ayushmann and Bala makers to court for plagiarism, files police complaint after team kicks off shooting
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; June 1, 2019)

Even as Ayushmann Khurrana shoots for the second schedule of Bala, Kamal Kant Chandra — an assistant director and aspiring filmmaker — has filed a criminal complaint under Section 420 (cheating) and 406 (breach of trust) against the actor and the makers at the Kashimira police station in Mira Road (mid-day is in possession of a copy of the complaint). This comes weeks after he had filed a case in the Bombay High Court against Khurrana, director Amar Kaushik and producer Dinesh Vijan, accusing them of lifting the central plot of a prematurely balding man from his project, Wig.

Chandra, who was the assistant director on Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana, claims that in the last hearing on April 19, the lawyers representing the trio had falsely mentioned to the bench that the film is in the scripting stage. "It's wrong to start shooting before the court has given its verdict. At the last hearing, they said that they would take time to develop the script. How did they start shooting in 15 days? This means they gave a misleading picture to the court. I approached the vacation bench four days ago, but they stated that I should wait for the next hearing on June 10. But the makers might finish [a chunk of] the film by then and argue that since a lot of money is at stake, the court should rule in their favour."

Chandra adds that he has Whatsapp messages from Khurrana, dating back to 2017, when the actor had expressed interest in the film's idea. "I registered my concept with Screen Writers' Association in 2016 while their script has been registered in 2018." When mid-day reached out to Khurrana, his legal team said, "What has been communicated to you is a mala fide distortion of facts, specially with regard to the proceedings of April 9. Since the matter is sub-judice, we are not commenting any further. Our script is original, and we will show that to the court when the matter comes up." The spokesperson of Maddock Films added, "The court has neither granted relief to the plaintiff nor passed any order restraining us from going ahead with the movie."