‘Gulabo Sitabo’ writer Juhi Chaturvedi has been accused of plagiarism by Akira Agrawal, son of late writer Rajeev Agrawal. He has claimed that Rajeev had submitted a story titled ‘16, Mohandas Lane’ in a ‘Storyteller Script Contest, where Chaturvedi was a jury member.
Advocate Rizwan Siddiqui, on behalf of late writer Rajeev Aggrawal’s son Akira, has sent a legal notice to the makers of the film and also filed a complaint at Mumbai’s Juhu Police Station.
Now, suppressing all the claims, Juhi claims that the film is her original work and her ‘conscience is clear’. Speaking to IANS, she said, “My conscience is clear, and so are the facts in this matter. ‘Gulabo Sitabo’ is my original work and I am proud of it. I shared the idea with the director (Shoojit Sircar) and lead actor (Amitabh Bachchan) of the film in early 2017. I subsequently registered the concept note for the film in May 2018.”
According to Siddiqui, Agrawal took part in a scriptwriting competition in 2018, organized by the Screenwriters Association (SWA). Juhi was one of the judges at the contest.
He claimed that all jury members had access to the submitted scripts, and Aggarwal’s work was copied at that time.
He added that they were shocked to find similarities between Aggarwal’s story and the Gulabo Sitabo trailer.
The lawyer informed that they had also approached the SWA for mediation in the matter, and the association then asked Juhi to show her script. He further claimed that Juhi denied that she had access to the submitted scripts during the said competition.
Meanwhile, according to Gulabo Sitabo’s production house Rising Sun Films, the SWA ruled in favour of Juhi on May 29.
Rising Sun Films claimed that Juhi never received a copy of the “supposedly copied script”.
“Lastly, our film’s story is different from that sent out in the notice. It is surprising how grave allegations are being made solely on the basis of a…trailer,” they added.
‘Gulabo Sitabo’ is produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar, and is set to premiere worldwide on June 12 on Amazon Prime Video.