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Showing contexts for: modi script in Block vs Yashraj Films Pvt Ltd on 20 June, 2014Matching Fragments
7. What precisely is the Plaintiff's claim? He says that if one dissects the film and his script and chalks out component elements side by side, there is far too much of a coincidence to be inadvertence. In Exhibit "C" to the plaint, the Plaintiff presents a comparative chart. This chart purports to analyse the similarities between the Plaintiff's script and the film. This chart, in fact, is the bedrock of the Plaintiff's case. Mr. Modi points out that from this tabulation there are very many elements that are common to both the film and the Plaintiff's script. Take these common elements out of the film, Mr. Modi submits, and there is no film at all. Therefore, the submission is not only that there is a similarity but that there is so much in the film that is copied from the script that this cannot be mere coincidence or happenstance. It is a deliberate attempt to copy the Plaintiff's work and constitutes an infringement.
D. THE QUESTION OF 'ACCESS' TO THE SCRIPT
8. Mr. Modi points to certain public statements made by various persons in the press from or connected with the 1st Defendant regarding the film. According to Mr. Modi, it is not possible to accept the version of Defendants No. 1 to 3 that their script, annexed as Exhibit "C" to the affidavit in reply of the 1st Defendant, was of 15th May 2012 because there are newspaper reports of February 2011 and perhaps even earlier where persons on behalf of Defendants No. 1 to 3 are quoted as referring to the script of this movie. Clearly, Mr. Modi says, the Defendants have deliberately tried to create confusion, when, in fact, all that they have done is use the Plaintiff's original work, one that was with them from early 2010.
14. Mr. Modi attempted to read the correspondence after December 2013 to suggest that the 1st Defendant had not once denied receipt of the script. That puts the cart before the horse. I 11 of 31 901-NMSL502-2014.DOC do not find in any of the letters or emails addressed by the Plaintiff to the 1st Defendant any reference to the script having been delivered or left at the office of the 1st Defendant. It is not possible to read the correspondence in the manner Mr. Modi suggests. If anything, matters seem to be to the contrary and the converse seem to be the case. For, in more than one letter/e-mail the Plaintiff has implored persons from the 1st Defendant to "read my script". Even making allowance for the fact that is in generalized correspondence, not based on legal advice at that stage and that all that the Plaintiff sought to do was to specifically draw the attention of the 2nd Defendant, a person highly placed in the 1st Defendant organization, the fact remains that there is absolutely no assertion of the delivery of the script till the commencement of advocates' correspondence on 7th February 2014. It is only in the Plaintiff's advocates' first notice of that date that there is a reference, and that too extremely guardedly placed, of the script being delivered to the 1st Defendant: