Akshay Kumar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is in legal trouble

The trailer of Akshay Kumar‘s upcoming film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha was applauded by everyone. The film has a social message as well entertainment both hand in hand. The trailer was even appreciated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But seems like all is not well for the filmmakers nowadays. The film has landed itself in a legal soup over its content.

Documentary filmmaker, Praveen Vyas has sent a legal notice to the Viacom 18 Motion Pictures saying that dialogues and some moments in the film have been lifted from his award-winning documentary film Manini.

Talking about it to a leading daily, Vyas said, “We have sent a legal notice to Viacom 18, as Toilet Ek Prem Katha seems to be a frame to frame copy of the plot and theme of our documentary film, Manini. We had submitted the film at the International Film Festival Of India (IFFI), in Goa 2016. There were around 4500 entries at the festival, all having Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan as the theme. We have sent a four pager notice to the makers of Toilet (Toilet: Ek Prem Katha) and they sent us a reply only after ten days, that too asking for more time to review our notice.”

“Its plot was novel and the characters unique and my docu-feature was commended for its creativity and treatment. No one can make another cinematographic work or any other derivative work without my written consent if their work directly resembles mine,” 

On the other hand, the makers of Toilet Ek Prem Katha have denied all the allegations. Shital Bhatia, co-producer of ‘Toilet: Ek Prem Katha said “These allegations are baseless and border on harassment. The script of our film has been registered under our writers’ names, Siddharth and Garima, with the authorised industry association since 2013. Furthermore, the film has been in the public domain through various news stories since July 2015. We firmly deny all the claims made by this gentleman who is obviously misled. It is sad that genuine producers have become soft targets for this kind of nuisance,” he said.

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha is slated to release on 11 August.