The Supreme Court of India on Friday quashed the criminal proceedings pending against filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh in a Jharkhand court over allegations of copyright infringement related to his 2016 film Kahaani 2.
A bench comprising Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe allowed Ghosh’s appeal, setting aside a Jharkhand High Court order dated April 22, 2025, which had previously refused to interfere with the trial court’s summoning order.
“The summoning order dated June 7, 2018, passed by the CJM [Chief Judicial Magistrate] and order dated April 22, 2025, passed by the High Court are quashed and set aside,” the bench stated while delivering the judgment.
The legal battle originated from a complaint filed by Umesh Prasad Mehta in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. Mehta alleged that he had authored a script titled Sabak, which was certified by a Notary Public for the purpose of obtaining copyright.
According to the complainant, he had met Sujoy Ghosh and obtained a recommendation letter from him to facilitate the copyright process. Mehta further alleged that during their interaction, Ghosh kept a photocopy of the Sabak script and subsequently used its contents to produce Kahaani 2 without authorization.
Mehta claimed he discovered the alleged infringement after watching the film at a cinema hub in Hazaribagh. He subsequently filed a complaint alleging that the filmmaker had committed “theft” of his script and violated Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
In June 2018, the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Hazaribagh took cognizance of the matter, finding a prima facie case against the filmmaker and issued a summoning order.
Ghosh challenged this order in the Jharkhand High Court, seeking to quash the proceedings. However, on April 22, 2025, the High Court dismissed his plea. The High Court had observed that it would not conduct a “mini-trial” at the quashing stage, noting that the merits of the copyright claim and the similarities between the scripts were issues to be tested during the trial.
Dissatisfied with the High Court’s stance, Ghosh moved the Supreme Court. In July last year, the top court issued a notice to the Jharkhand government to examine the legality of the pending case.
By setting aside the High Court’s order and quashing the CJM’s summoning order, the Supreme Court has effectively ended the seven-year legal ordeal for the filmmaker regarding this specific allegation. The decision reinforces the court’s power to intervene when it finds that criminal proceedings are not warranted based on the materials provided at the preliminary stage.
