New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India on Friday allowed the appeal filed by national award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter Sujoy Ghosh, quashing criminal proceedings initiated against him under Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957, on the allegation that his film Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh was made using a stolen script.
The Bench comprising Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe delivered the judgment on March 20, 2026.
Sujoy Ghosh, widely known for directing the critically acclaimed film Kahaani, released on March 9, 2012, for which he received the National Award for Best Screenplay in 2013, had approached the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Jharkhand High Court dated April 22, 2025, which had dismissed his petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings against him.
The case arose from a complaint filed by one Ajay Kumar Mehta before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hazaribagh, alleging that he had authored a script titled Sabak and had shared it with Sujoy Ghosh during a meeting in Mumbai on June 29, 2015. The complainant claimed to have registered the script with the Screen Writers Association (SWA) on July 31, 2015. When Ghosh’s film Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh was released on December 2, 2016, the complainant alleged that the film had been made using his script without his permission, thereby infringing his copyright. The complaint alleged offences under Sections 63, 65, and 65A of the Copyright Act, 1957, and Section 387 of the Indian Penal Code.
Before approaching the CJM, the complainant had also filed a complaint before the SWA, which referred the dispute to its Dispute Settlement Committee. The Committee, comprising domain experts, examined both works and, by an order dated February 24, 2018, concluded that there was no similarity between the appellant’s film and the complainant’s script, and accordingly dismissed the complaint.
Critically, this finding of the SWA’s expert committee was rendered before the CJM had recorded the statements of the complainant’s witnesses and before a summoning order was passed. Despite this, neither the complainant nor his witnesses brought the SWA’s finding to the notice of the CJM. The CJM, after recording the statements of the complainant’s brother and cousin, issued summons against Ghosh and co-accused Prabhat Kumar Thakur on June 7, 2018, holding that a prima facie case under Section 63 of the Copyright Act was made out.
Ghosh thereafter filed a petition before the Jharkhand High Court under Section 482 of the CrPC seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings. The High Court dismissed the petition, holding that the Magistrate’s role at the summoning stage is limited to ascertaining whether sufficient ground exists to proceed, and that the complaint contained direct and specific allegations of copyright infringement, the veracity of which had to be tested during trial. The High Court also observed that inherent powers under Section 482 should not be exercised to stifle a legitimate prosecution.
Before the Supreme Court, senior counsel for Ghosh argued that the summoning order disclosed complete non-application of mind, as there was no material on record, even prima facie, to conclude that there was any similarity between the film and the complainant’s script. It was further contended that the complaint and the witness statements did not identify any specific portion of the script allegedly copied, and that the complainant had deliberately suppressed the SWA expert committee’s finding of no similarity. It was also pointed out that Ghosh had registered the synopsis of the film as far back as December 10, 2012, the partial script on October 10, 2013, and the full script on December 2, 2013, all well before the complainant even claimed to have written his script or met Ghosh.
The Supreme Court, after examining the record, found merit in these submissions. The Court noted that the allegations of copyright infringement in the complaint were confined to bare and unsubstantiated assertions that the film was made on the complainant’s script and that most scenes were based on it, without identifying any specific similarity. The statements of the complainant’s witnesses similarly did not identify any feature of the script allegedly copied.
The Court held that the summoning order had been passed in a mechanical manner and suffered from the vice of non-application of mind, as the CJM had not even recorded satisfaction that there was any similarity between the two works. The Court also found that the High Court had failed to appreciate this infirmity.
The Court further observed that the appellant’s work clearly preceded the complainant’s script in point of time and, therefore, the question of copyright infringement did not arise at all, since the complainant’s script was not even in existence when Ghosh had registered his screenplay.
Holding that the proceedings were manifestly frivolous and vexatious, the Supreme Court quashed the summoning order dated June 7, 2018, passed by the CJM, the order of the Jharkhand High Court dated April 22, 2025, and the entire proceedings in Complaint Case No. 1267 of 2017 pending before the CJM, Hazaribagh.
Case Title: Sujoy Ghosh v. The State of Jharkhand & Anr. (2026 INSC 267)
