Shah Rukh-Farah Accused of Plagiarism

Farah Khan has delivered three healthy babies but we hear that it wasn't the easiest pregnancy. She couldn't put her head on the pillow for the last trimester of her pregnancy. Fashion writer Ajay Monga has been knocking her doors and demanding Rs 1.25 crores for alleged copyright violation. According to Monga, Shah Rukh Khan and Farah Khan (producers of Om Shanti Om) have copied the first half of OSO from a script which he handed over to King Khan's office.

Monga is hell bent on getting his due and is even taking his battle to court. Monga tells us, “Yes, I demanded Rs 1.25 crore from Red Chillies but nothing moved ahead. So, I went to Cine Writers' Association, but that too to no avail. The Cine Writers' Association agreed that the first half of OSO was similar to my script. However, they did not take any action against Farah and SRK. I am not giving up and am taking this complaint to a legal level.”

Raj Joshi (of Cine Writers Association) says that he saw OSO and compared Monga's script. “There are similarities but it's not a straight lift. That does not tantamount to copying. Hence, we did not entertain the complaint further.”

However Monga says, “The similarities are not few but many. The second half is a mixture of Karz and Madhumati. But people don't know that Mushtaq has not conceived (OSO writer) the first half either. It's lifted from the script, which I wanted to cast SRK for. Not only many instances in the first half, but the plot too revolves around a male wannabe and a female superstar.”

What did he want to cast SRK for? Monga replies, “I wrote a story for which I appointed a director and we decided to cast Vikram. But that did not happen. Then I thought of making the same film with SRK. That is when I gave my script to Sushma, the then secretary of SRK. This was much before OSO went on the floors.”

Monga adds, “I was shocked when I saw OSO. I called up Farah, but she did not talk much at that point since she was pregnant. Red Chillies heard me out and said that they would solve the matter. However, they kept dilly-dallying and sent me to Juhi Chawla's brother Bobby Chawla. Bobby did not take me seriously.”

When contacted, Farah said that she was aware that Monga had demanded Rs 1.25 crore. She added irritatedly, “However, we are not fools to pay him any money. I don't even know when he gave a script to Red Chillies and what it contained. Yes, he did meet Bobby Chawla, but his claims are all false. And why blame Mushtaq? Mushtaq was brought in much later after I had conceived the entire story.”

Well let's hope Monga does not have to wait for re-incarnation to sort this out!

Vickey Lalwani, Mumbai Mirror