- Saturday, February 22, 2025
The action was taken after it was found that the film director had plagiarised a shorty story to make his 2010 blockbuster “Enthiran”
By: India Weekly
TAMIL film director S. Shankar became a household name after the release of “Enthiran (Robot)” in 2010, but now he is paying a heavy price over allegations of plagiarism.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached Shankar’s three immovable properties, valued around ₹101.1 million (£924,138), under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The action was taken after investigating a case of plagiarism filed by Tamil writer Aarur Tamilnadan against Shankar in a Chennai court in 2011.
Tamilnadan alleged that the storyline of Shankar’s superhit movie “Enthiran” (Robot), was plagiarised from his short story “Jiguba”, in violation of the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC), of 1860.
The Film and Television Institute of India was commissioned to examine the claim, and it found that there were striking similarities between the short story and the film.
The subsequent investigation by the ED found that Shankar had received a remuneration of ₹115 million from Enthiran project.
His work included story development, screenplay, dialogues, and direction.
“Enthiran”, starring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, released in 2010 and was a blockbuster, earning ₹2.9 billion (£26.5m) worldwide.
Authorities have concluded that Shankar has violated Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957 – which is now classified as a scheduled offence under the prevention of money laundering act (PMLA), 2002.
The Metropolitan Magistrate Court-II, Egmore, had also issued a non-bailable warrant against Shankar for repeatedly failing to appear in court.
Tamilnadan had published the short story in a Tamil magazine Iniya Udhayam in 1996. He then republished it as a novel titled “Dhik Dhik Dheepika” in 2007.
