BJP Lok Sabha member Kangna Ranaut’s film Emergency has run into more controversy with author Coomi Kapoor deciding to sue the producers for breach of copyright and defamation caused by the allegedly distorted narration of historical incidents.
The film previously faced opposition from Sikh groups over its depiction of separatist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as secretly working in agreement with Indira Gandhi.
The film’s disclaimer says it is based on Kapoor’s The Emergency and Jaiyanth Vasanth Sinha’s Priyadarshini. Kapoor has objected to this.
“Even after two legal notices, the film still shows this disclaimer…,” she told The Telegraph.
“They told me they were doing a movie on Indira Gandhi. I gave it to them. That’s my stupidity, because they said we are only using one chapter. The contents are from all chapters. Indira Gandhi’s life is in the public domain. Don’t cite the book and present wrong facts.”
Coomi Kapoor.
In her April 3 notice to Ranaut’s Manikarnika Films and OTT platform Netflix, her lawyers said: “You have intentionally and maliciously distorted facts in the said Film, displayed utter disregard for the rights and consent of our Client, and unlawfully exploited her name in association with the said Film.”
The lawyers referred to six alleged historical inaccuracies. For example: “The movie makes out that Mrs Indira Gandhi went personally to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and threatened him into declaring an Emergency without calling a Cabinet meeting…. Even the information that journalist Nikhil Chakravarty being arrested under Maintenance of Internal Security Act [‘MISA’] is wrong.”
Claiming defamation of Kapoor, the notice said: “For instance, an indignant Mr Akbar Ahmed (Dumpy) telephoned our Client to protest that he was not in India when Mr Kishore Kumar’s songs were banned from All India Radio. Our Client had to pacify him and explain to him that in her Book the banning of Mr Kishore Kumar’s songs on All India Radio is attributed to then I&B Minister Mr V C Shukla and not Mr Akbar Ahmed (Dumpy).”
The notice said the 2021 agreement between Kapoor, her publisher Penguin Random House India and Manikarnika Films did not permit the distortion of facts.
It added: “You had also been requested to show the script of the proposed film to our Client before proceeding forward -- this was not done despite follow-up messages from our Client.
“Furthermore, the said Agreement specifically mandated that our Client’s name, portrait, biography, and identity could be used strictly for advertising and promotional purposes ‘subject to the prior approval of the author in writing’. No such approval was taken by you….”
On April 10, Manikarnika Films countered the allegations saying Kapoor’s 2015 book was not the sole reference for the film, and that the company was not under any obligation to get the script approved by her.
On the alleged inaccuracies cited, Manikarnika said “it was explicitly agreed upon in the parties’ agreement that creative liberties would be exercised to make necessary modifications to the subject story and screenplay” and that Kapoor had given them “absolute and complete intellectual property rights” on the book for this purpose.
Ranaut, a director of the company, did not respond to an email and a WhatsApp message from this newspaper seeking her response. Last year, she had accused the censor board of “imposing Emergency” by stalling her film’s certification.
Netflix replied to Kapoor on April 8 saying it had “licensed” the film by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd and that Kapoor should contact them instead.
Kapoor’s legal team said they would file the suit in Delhi High Court. They said in a statement that she had not seen the film when it released in January and only saw it after it was streamed on Netflix.
There, “she discovered to her horror that in large type at the bottom it was claimed the film was based on her book and she saw the film for the first time and discovered it was a total distortion of the contents of her book”.
