Marathi film Zombivli to release without a hitch, Bombay HC to hear copyright plea on Feb 3

Bombay High Court will hear copyright infringement plea against makers of Marathi film Zombivli on February 3. In the meantime, the film will release tomorrow, January 26.

Saregama's Marathi film Zombivli is set to release tomorrow, January 26. The movie is directed by Aditya Sarpotdar and features Amey Wagh, Vaidehi Parshurami and Lalit Prabhakar in lead roles.

A writer and independent filmmaker, Taran Wadhwa, had approached the Bombay High Court over copyright issues. He claimed that Saregama India illicitly used his material to make a Marathi film (which is a breach of confidentiality) and that Saregama infringed his copyright in one, or possibly three published works (copyright infringement).

Wadhwa claimed that he began working on a comedy about zombies in April 2018. In May 2018, he registered a synopsis with the Screen Writers’ Association (SWA) and then shared it with Saregama through its division, Yoodle Films.

Yoodle purportedly asked Wadhwa to submit a fully developed and complete screenplay when ready, which Wadhwa had done. This process was repeated another time before Saregama said that it had no interest in continuing with the proposal further. On July 30, 2020, Saregama announced the production of its forthcoming film Zombivli, which Wadhwa claimed came from the idea submitted by him.

Wadhwa claimed in his application that he had the germ of the idea and authorship, that Saregama had complete and continuous access to his work and that there was prima facie proof of usage by Saregama of his original work.

Wadhwa had prayed for a declaration that there is a copyright infringement and, as an interim measure, had sought a restraining order against the release of the film. All this while, Saregama had denied all the allegations and stated that its work was original.

However, on Tuesday, the bench of Justices SJ Kathawalla and Milind Jadhav noted that "Since the parties have agreed that the appeal will be finally heard on February 3, 2022, the Advocate for Wadhwa on instructions is not pressing for the reliefs sought in the Interim Application."