Melbourne-based writer Nishant Kaushik has claimed the soon-to-be-released Yash Raj film, Hichki’s director Siddharth P Malhotra took ideas from his script and did not give him due credit for it.
Kaushik, who authored the book My Father Is A Hero, claimed on Twitter that the director had approached him to write a story based on a one-liner that he had in his mind.
Despite having a day job, he says he worked on developing the story and the characters and submitted to the director.
But for months, he didn't get any reply from Malhotra about whether his script was approved and he assumed the project had been shelved.
However, after watching the Hichki trailer, he found many similarities with the plot and what he had written for Malhotra and decided to rant against the director on the social networking site.
He began by saying, “Landing in India this morning, I watched the trailer of #Hichki which served as a rude reminder of how easy it is to treat writers like trash.”
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DIRECTOR DENIES THE CLAIMS MADE BY KAUSHIK
Director Siddharth P Malhotra on Wednesday denied the claims made by Mr Kaushik.
Terming the claims as "baseless", Malhotra said that he bought the official rights tothe novel Front of the Class on which the movie is based and claimed that the team has credited all the writers who have contributed to the film.
"I had acquired the rights to make Front of the Class as a Hindi motion picture in 2013. Nishant Kaushik's claims are baseless. He was contacted through Exceed Entertainment and I haven't even met him once. We were looking for writers who could come up with a take on the Front of the Class. We had approached several writers including Nishant."
"This was, 2015. Several prominent writers like Amole Gupte, Abbas Tyrewala have worked on the story of Hichki and we have obtained NOCs from them and I thank each one of them for being the creative contributors of Hichki. We have credited all the writers who have worked in our film. So, it is ridiculous that we will not give credit to anyone in particular who has worked hard and contributed for Hichki," he told DNA.
Meanwhile, Kaushik said on Twitter he will speak to the Australian Writers’ Guild about a legal recourse.
The trailer of the film featuring Rani Mukherji has been well received by the audiences so far. The movie is slated to release on February 23rd next year.
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