Madhur Bhandarkar dragged to court for copying story

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar was still trying to recover from the shock of his ambitious project Heroine being shelved that a new controversy strikes him. Scriptwriter Surendra Tanwar is set to file a court case against Bhandarkar for copying one of his stories for his 2009 film Jail. Tanwar claims film Jail is based on 'Gunahon Ka Devta', a story registered on his name with the Film Writers" Association (FWA) in 1999.

Tanwar accuses that Madhur's direction Jail made in 2003 is a copy of his story picked by writer Dilip Shukla. Surendra was formerly employed with Shukla as an assistant writer. After Jail released in 2009 Surendra was surprised to see the similarity between his story and the film's script, therefore he filed a complaint with FWA.

Later the the Disputes Settlement Committee of FWA set up an enquiry, wherein the maker with the writer escaped the issue claiming that Jail was based on the Hollywood films like Midnight Express and Shawshank Redemption. Tanwar counteracts that all the excuses given by the writer and Bhandarkar are untrue. After long examination, the committee concluded that Jail was a copy of Tanwar's script, but there were no evidence to prove it.

FWA says that everybody has the right to approach the court for his or her right, while Madhur remained unavailable for the comment.