LAHORE :The presiding officer of Intellectual Property Tribunal on Thursday again extended the stay on exhibition of Maula Jatt 2 by November 28. The counsel for film director Bilal Lashari argued that the suit filed by the director and producer of 1979 film Maula Jatt, Serwar Bhatti, was not maintainable. The court after hearing the arguments of Bilal’s counsel directed the counsel for Bhatti to come up with arguments by Nov 28. Film director Bilal Lashari and Chief Executive Encyclomedia PR Ammara Hikmat again failed to submit written statements after which the court again gave them time to submit their statements till next hearing. Previously, the tribunal had restrained noted Pakistani film director Bilal Lashari, Chief Executive Encyclomedia PR Ammara Hikmat, producer of the film, and their team from exhibiting and releasing Maula Jatt 2. The tribunal had granted stay order on a petition moved by Serwar Bhatti through his counsel Ahsan Masood. The counsel argued that his client was the producer of a Punjabi film "Maula Jatt" and held all the rights in relation to this movie, including title and cinematographic works, and the censorship certificate was also issued by Central Film Censor Board, Islamabad, in the name of the petitioner as its producer, thus the petitioner had obtained registration of the copyrights in the cinematographic work. The lawyer contended that the respondents had no right to use the title, script, characters, dialogue, poetry, music, etc, in respect of this work but respondents Bilal Lashari, Chief Executive Encyclomedia PR Ammara Hikmat and others had been infringing the petitioner's legal rights in this matter. On the other end, Advocate Khurram Chughtai, counsel for Bilal Lashari and others, argued that his clients neither infringed nor had any intention to infringe any right of the petitioner. He contended that one of his clients, Ammar Hikmat, held the copyrights in script of the film, whereas, the petitioner had no right as per his own certificate in respect of the title, brand /mark. The counsel said that Bilal Lashari had already moved the forum concerned for obtaining registration of trade mark in respect of name of the movie. He produced the copy of the certificate bearing No 35962 and prayed for adjourning the matter to submit of the written statements.
