Soon to be released Leader and last year’s Bumper Offer have landed in controversy. A writer named Srinivas Reddy has lodged complaint against Amma Rajashekar for stealing his idea and selling it off to another producer. And another writer Shiva claims that the basic premise and storyline of Sekhar Kammula’s yet-to-be released Leader is his own and he also filed case against Sekhar Kammula in a court.
Interestingly, Bumper Offer, which was released in last September, has more claimants for its script. Three writers – Suryadevara, Srinivas Reddy and Amma Rajashekar, say the film’s script is theirs. Srinivas Reddy alleges that he narrated the plot line of Bumper Offer to Amma Rajashekar, which the director liked it but without the writer’s knowledge he sold it off to producer Puri Jagannadh. Incidentally, Puri produced it with his brother Sairam Shankar and Puri was credited as writer in the film’s credits.
Srinivas Reddy now went on fasting at Writer’s Association office and is seeking justice. Amma Rajashkear says it is his own story. So, the association has now forwarded the case to Film Federation.
On the other hand, writer Shiva first complained against Sekhar Kammula for ‘stealing his idea’ of ‘Chief Minister’s son becoming Chief Minister’ with the Writer’s Association. Sekhar Kammula vehemently denied the allegations and the case was dropped off at the association. Now Shiva has moved to the court.
Interestingly, in the recent times, several such cases have cropped up in Tollywood. During time of Magadheera’s release, a writer claimed the storyline is his and another novelist claimed the script was copied from his novel.
Whether these claims have any validity or they are just an attempt to grab the publicity remains to be seen.
