Prakash Jha slapped with a legal notice for creating ‘Jai Gangaajal’

It’s been exactly a week today after Play Entertainment, the co-producer of Priyanka Chopra starrer ‘Jai Gangaajal‘ had filed a police complaint against director Prakash Jha and his production company, alleging fraud and cheating. And today a fresh trouble has come up for filmmaker Jha as reputed production house Phantom Films have served a notice to him alleging that this crime drama film was made without Jha having the rights of making a sequel. They are demanding Rs 1 crore from Prakash Jha.

As many would know, Phantom Films is a joint movie production house owned by Vikas Bahl, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena, which claims to have the IPR (intellectual property rights) of the film ‘Gangaajal’ and the rights to make a sequel or any adaptation based on the original film.

Therefore, a notice had been issued on August 6 claiming that Prakash Jha had made a sequel with Priyanka Chopra without having rights.

“As the film is made already and intellectual property rights are violated, Jha should provide Rs 1 crore to Phantom film as compensation,” the notice stated.

The notice further added that if Jha fails to pay the compensation within 7 days, then Phantom Films will go to court against the director and his banner PJP (Prakash Jha Productions) over the issue.

The notice from Phantom Films has also stated that Jha has already taken money for the rights of ‘Gangaajal’ and ‘Jai Gangaajal’ films (from Phantom), and thus, does not hold the authority to make a sequel.

The Phantom Films came up with this notice after Play Entertainment, the co-producers of ‘Jai Gangaajal’ had issued an advertisement in a trade magazine, regarding the rights of ‘Gangaajal’, that if nobody turns up to claims of the rights of the film (‘Jai Gangaajal’), then it will be assumed that the rights will be protected by Play Entertainment.

Reacting to the notice issued, the CEO of Prakash Jha Productions, Mr. Sunil Agrawal said, “‘Gangaajal’ was a creation of Prakash Jha. And besides, this (‘Jai Gangaajal’) movie is not a sequel of the earlier movie. It is independent by itself. There is no similarity between both movies so where is the question of violating IPR?” [sic]

He added that if allegations against their production house were true, the complainant could have gone to court and stalled the release of ‘Jai Gangaajal’.

“But they didn’t do so as they had no substance in their allegations. They are only trying to grab advantage of Jha’s status,” he said.

Meanwhile, an official from Amboli police station said that a letter of inquiry has been issued to Jha, asking him to appear before them on Wednesday.

“We have issued a letter of inquiry to Prakash Jha. We have requested him to answer a few queries that we have,” he said.

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