Mahesh Bhupathi's banner sued over 'Namaste England'

Film production and distribution company T-Series has lodged a complaint against veteran tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi's production house for alleged involvement in cheating and copyright infringement over Vipul Shah's upcoming film "Namaste England".

The production house has filed a criminal complaint against Bhupathi's Blue Whale Motion Pictures on multiple counts, including criminal breach of trust, breach of confidence, wrongful disclosure of confidential information, copyright infringement and cheating.

According to a statement, producers Bhupathi, Virender Arora, Prerna Arora and Arjun N Kapoor have been served with a legal notice by T-Series's lawyers alleging that the producers have defrauded T-Series by setting up dummy companies to enter into agreements with third parties for independently producing the film without either informing T-Series or without taking their consent.

Ajay Kapoor, a director of T-Series, confirmed that a complaint has been filed before the Delhi Police Crime Branch in this regard.

"We have a valid, subsisting and irrevocably binding MoU, dated June 10, wherein T-Series is co-producing the film 'Namaste England' as one of the owners in the IP of the Film.

"Further, all rights in the music and audio visual of the said film has also been assigned in our favour. Any attempt by any party to circumvent and/or negate the said MoU or wriggle out of the contractual obligation shall tantamount to copyright infringement, fraud, unfair business practice, dishonestly misappropriating property, criminal breach of trust, cheating, breach of confidentiality and wrongful disclosure of confidential information," Kapoor said.

As the case goes, Blue Whale Motion Pictures signed a Memorandum of Understanding with T-Series for jointly producing "Namaste England".

In the same MoU, T-Series was also assigned exclusive music rights and IP in the Akshay Kumar-starrer.