Kannada actor-filmmaker Rakshit Shetty reportedly applied for anticipatory bail after the Bengaluru police registered a case against him for copyright infringement. He applied for bail in the Bengaluru Sessions Court on July 20 and the court will hear the matter on July 24.

An FIR was filed on July 15, based on a complaint by Naveen Kumar of the label MRT Music, which alleged that Shetty’s production house, Paramvah Studios, used songs from the movies Gaali Maathu (1981) and Nyaya Ellide (1982) without permission for his film Bachelor Party. Allegedly, in January, Shetty and MRT Music discussed acquiring the rights to the songs, but the talks were unsuccessful, as the label wasn’t open to negotiation.

The Bengaluru police issued a notice to Shetty seeking a response. Meanwhile, his production house shared a statement on social media that read: “A schoolgirl sings one of the songs in her class during a scene, and a short clip of the second song plays on the TV in another scene.”

The team admitted to approaching the music company before the film’s release, but claimed that the quoted price was too high: “Is this really copyright infringement? If it is, what should we pay? We were quoted an exorbitant price by MRT. If it is not, how do we handle such harassment from music companies?”