Chennai:
The Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on a plea by former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s niece seeking to restrain some filmmakers from going ahead with the bilingual biopic of the late leader.
Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar has sought to restrain them from going ahead with their project without her consent.
The matter pertains to the announcement made by filmmakers A L Vijay, Vishnu Vardhan Induri and Gowtham Vasudev Menon to produce a film on the biography of late Jayalalitha titled ‘THALAIVI’ in Tamil and ‘JAYA’ in Hindi besides web series, ‘Queen’.
While ‘Thalaivi’ and ‘Jaya’, directed by AL Vijay, is in the works, the web series is directed by Gautham Menon.
The film will have Hindi actress Kangana Ranaut in the lead and the web series stars Ramya Krishnan.
Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy, before whom the original application in the civil suit by Deepa Jayakumar came up, reserved orders after hearing arguments.
Deepa has contended that the filmmakers did not have any legal right to produce the movie on the life and times of Jayalalithaa.
In her application, Deepa further claimed the three do not have any legal right, power or authority to make to publish, exhibit publicly or privately film or any tele or web serial in respect of Jayalalithaa’s life or that of any direct descendants without her consent.
Counsel for Deepa on Wednesday submitted that the court may appoint a retired Madras High Court judge to see the movie and the web serial and decide on the objections.
Counsel for Vishnu Vardhan Induri submitted that the producer decided to produce the feature film ‘Thalaivi’ based on the book ‘Thalaivi.’
Deepa has not objected to the publication of numerous books written on Jayalalitha including ‘Thalaivi’ and the book was also registered under the Copyright Act.
She has also not raised any objection when an announcement was made about the movie.
Pre-production work has been happening for the past 18 months and ‘Thalaivi’ has a huge star cast, the counsel submitted,adding he has incurred huge expenses for the film already.
Counsel for Menon submitted that the web series was based on a English book titled ‘Queen’ and nowhere connected with the late Jayalalithaa’s life.
He submitted that Rs 25 crore had already been spent on the series.
Deepa said being a family member of Jayalalithaa, she was associated with important events in the late leader’s life.
She apprehended that the filmmakers might portray the life of her aunt and hers as well in their “own version” affecting her privacy.
To safeguard the personality rights of the late leader minister, protect her own privacy and that of her family, it was absolutely necessary to restrain the makers of the biopic from going ahead, without getting her approval for the storyline and the script, Deepa said in her plea.
