Ashish Kaul on FIR against Kangana Ranaut: Narrative of Didda as nationalist written by only me

By Yashika Mathur

Mumbai, March 13 Ashish Kaul, the author of the book “Didda: The Warrior Queen Of Kashmir”, who has filed an FIR against actress Kangana Ranaut for announcing the film “Manikarnika Returns: The Legend Of Didda” without his approval, says the narrative of the queen being a nationalist who nurtured an undivided India has been written solely by him. Kaul filed his First Information Report at Khar station for the violation of copyright Act. His application has been placed under Section 156(3) of CrPC, 197.

The case has been filed against Kangana, her sister Rangoli Chandel, Kamal Kumar Jain and Manikarnika Films Private Limited on Friday.

Talking exclusively to IANS, Kaul said: “Copyright Act protects exclusivity. This is a non-bailable offence, which amounts to three years of jail term as recent High Court order. Besides my book, there is only one book in the world that mentions Didda. That 3,000-page book, ‘Rajataringi’, only has two pages on Didda where they talk about her sexual life, and how she killed her son and infant grandsons. The narrative of her being a nationalist who nurtured the undivided India has been written by only me. ”

On how his work reached Kangana, the author said: “I was in talks with various production houses for my book to be made into a film, which I could direct. The potential financer and distributor Mr. Uttam Maheshwari, who had come on board, sent my docket to Kangana. It had my script, characterisation, possible cast — everything.”

“For the last three years, all I have done is dream about this film and worked towards it. Now I am in major loss because I was already in talks with production houses,” Kaul added.

He revealed that he had sent a mail to Kangana informing her of the copyright violation but was met with a holding response that they would reply to his mail.

When contacted, Kangana Ranaut’s advocate Rizwan Siddiquee said: “I shall obtain a copy of the entire proceedings from the court and then give a detailed statement. At this juncture I cannot comment without perusing the complaint in detail.”

Kaul’s FIR was filed for infringement of the copyright and various other sections including 420, which amounts to criminal breach of trust, cheating, cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may ensure to the person whose interest the offender is bound to protect, as well as cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, punishable under Sections 406, 415, 418, 34, 120 B and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Section 51, 63, 63A and other provision of The Copyright Act, 1957 and Section 65 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.