Chennai: An Enforcement Directorate (ED) order, provisionally attaching the properties worth 10 crore, owned by film director S Shankar, for alleged money-laundering in connection with a copyright infringement case, was stayed by a division bench of Madras high court on Tuesday.
A division bench of Justice M S Ramesh and Justice N Senthilkumar gave the interim relief to the director on his petition challenging the ED’s order. The issue pertains to a case moved by writer Aarur Tamilnadan, alleging that the story of the Tamil movie ‘Enthiran’ was penned by him under the title ‘Jugiba’ and that Shankar copied the story without his consent, infringing his rights under the Copyright Act.
Since offences under the Copyright Act are scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), the ED passed the order provisionally attaching the property. When the plea came up for hearing on Tuesday, counsel for Shankar submitted that a suit moved in connection with the issue by Aarur Tamilnadan had already been dismissed by the high court, and another criminal proceeding was stayed. Therefore, the ED should not have attached the properties.
Concurring with the submission, the bench quashed the provisional order and directed the ED to refrain from initiating any further proceedings in connection with the attachment. “The provisional attachment order should not have been issued, particularly when the stay against the criminal complaint was in operation for the past three years,” the bench said and directed the ED to file its counter by April 21.
In June 2023, a single judge of the court dismissed a civil suit filed by the writer against Shankar, noting that copyright could not be claimed over an idea or a concept. The court further noted that there was no evidence available to show that the story of ‘Enthiran’ was a literal imitation of the story in ‘Jugiba.’