AR Murugadoss’s Sarkar has run into trouble with writer and assistant director Varun Rajendran accusing the director of plagiarism. Varun filed a complaint first with the South Indian Film Writers Association, and then later filed a petition with the Madras High Court on Wednesday, requesting for a ban on the film’s release until he’s given his due credits along with a remuneration of Rs 30 lakh for his story. The court has now asked the film’s director and producers to file their response by October 30. The case will be heard again on the date.
Justice M Sundar who heard Varun’s petition, stated that the film’s release cannot be banned until the respondents file their response. Varun had stated that Murugadoss’s Vijay starrer Sarkar's story is a copy of his work titled ‘Sengol’ which he had registered with the Writer’s Union in 2007. He also alleged that Murugadoss had made a few changes to his story to pass it off as his own.
When Varun’s case was heard by South Indian Film Writers Association president, actor and director K Bhagyaraj, he remarked that the stories were indeed similar.
This is not the first time filmmaker Murugadoss is getting into a plagiarism controversy. His 2004 release Ghajini was said to be inspired from Christopher Nolan’s 2000 neo-noir film Memento.
His first outing with Vijay, Kaththi, got into a controversy when scriptwriter Minjur Gopi filed a case that Kaththi’s story, credited to AR Murugadoss, was allegedly stolen from him. But the scriptwriter withdrew the case against AR Murugadoss later.
Sarkar received its U/A certification from Censor Board and is scheduled for release this Diwali. Bankrolled by Kalanidhi Maran under his banner Sun Pictures, Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman has composed the music for this magnum opus with Girish Gangadharan wielding the camera and A Sreekar Prasad editing it.
The film also stars Keerthy Suresh, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Arjun Sarja, Prem Kumar, Yogi Babu, Radha Ravi, and Pala Karuppiah.