Hindi
SRK’s Ra.one in copyright row
MUMBAI: Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan‘s upcoming superhero film Ra.one has landed in the court. The Bombay High Court has observed that prima facie there had been a copyright violation, while reserving the final verdict for later date.
The division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Roshan Dalvi directed the defendants (Sharukh Khan, his production house Red Chillies Entertainment and Eros Entertainment) to deposit Rs 10 million with the court before releasing the movie.
“The defendants are directed to deposit a sum of Rs 10 million as pay-order to the court and then release the movie,” PTI reported, quoting the bench.
The court was hearing the petition filed by Beyond Dreams CEO Yash Patnaik, who said that he is the original copyright owner of the concept and the content of RA.One‘, produced by SRK‘s Red Chillies Entertainment.
The court ordered that if the defendants failed to deposit the money, an injunction against the movie‘s release would become operational.
“It is the most unfortunate part of the film industry that people use others‘ concepts and then don‘t want to pay or give them credit,” the bench remarked.
The court has kept the final decision on the issue of copyright violation pending, and would hear arguments in due course of time.
The movie is to release on 26 October and stars Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal.
Patnaik had sought a stay to the film‘s release until he was given credit for the concept or 10 per cent of the profits, in case he was not given the credit.
Patnaik‘s lawyer, senior advocate Ravi Kadam, said that the superhero character resembled the one in Patnaik‘s concept of 2006, in ‘attributes and appearance‘.
“The super-villain of Patnaik‘s script was called ‘One‘, which has been used by SRK in the movie‘s title,” Kadam said.
Meanwhile, SRK‘s lawyer, senior advocate Virendra Tulzapurkar, said that his client‘s script was completely different. Also, “Patnaik cannot claim copyright as he had developed his concept with a team of experts he had engaged,” Tulzapurkar argued.
Meanwhile, Eros Entertainment‘s lawyer, senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas, argued that the company has acquired world distribution rights at Rs 1.50 billion and has already started transporting prints to theatres, so no stay should be granted at the last moment.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
