Film case disposed of

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday clarified that the producer of “The Legend of Maula Jatt” had not been restrained from doing any act he was entitled to do in accordance with the law.

Justice Aminuddin Khan observed this while disposing of a civil miscellaneous application moved by producer Bilal Lashari seeking clarification of March 18th stay order issued by the court on a petition of Muhammad Sarwar Bhatti, the producer of original Punjabi film “Maula Jatt.”

The judge in the previous order had stayed “unauthorised” use of title of film “Maula Jatt”, dialogues, characters, making/shooting and exhibition of work identical to the movie. Bilal Lashari through a counsel contended that the petitioner had been misinterpreting the order of the court and resorted to propaganda. The counsel argued that his client would be satisfied if the court clarified to the extent that he had not been restrained from doing any lawful act. Justice Khan observed that perusal of the record showed that the respondent (Lashari) had not been restrained from doing any act he was entitled / authorised to do under the law. With this observation, the judge disposed of the application. In the main petition, Bhatti submitted that he possessed the rights in relation to the movie, including title and cinematographic works and the censorship certificate was also issued by the censor board in his name as producer. He said the respondents, including Bilal Lashari had no right to use title, script, character, dialogue, poetry, music etc in respect of this work. However, he said, the respondents had been infringing his legal rights. Bhatti pointed out that the respondent producer and his team was making the film Maula Jatt having same dialogues, characters and script, which under the law they were not entitled to do.