Stay on Maula Jatt 2 exhibition extended

LAHORE: Presiding officer of Intellectual Property Tribunal Tuesday again extended the stay on exhibition of Maula Jatt 2 by December 16.

Previously, the Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) had restrained Pakistani film director Bilal Lashari, producer Ammara Hikmat and their team from exhibiting and releasing film Maula Jatt2.

The tribunal had granted stay order on a petition moved by director and producer Serwar Bhatti of 1979 film Maula Jatt through his counsel advocate Ahsan Masood. Advocate Ahsan Masood, counsel of the petitioner, argued that his client is the producer of a Punjabi Film "Maula Jatt" and holds 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 petitioner as a producer thereof, that the petitioner has obtained registration of the copyrights in the cinematographic work slide certificate No.33742.

The advocate contended that the respondents have no right to use the title, script, characters, dialogue, poetry, music etc in respect of this work but the respondents Bilal Lashari, Ammara Hikmat and others have been infringing the petitioner's legal rights in this matter.

On the other end, Advocate Khurram Chughtai, counsel of Bilal Lashari and others, argued that his clients have neither infringed nor have any intention of infringing any right of the petitioner.

He contended that one of his clients Ammara Hikmat holds the copyrights in script of film, whereas, the petitioner has no right as per his own certificate in respect of title name, brand /mark.

The counsel said that Bilal Lashari has already moved for obtaining registration of trade mark in respect of name of the movie. He produced copy or certificate bearing No.35962 and prayed for adjourning the matter to submit written statement.