'Don't Cite My Book and Present Wrong Facts': Coomi Kapoor on Suing Makers of Kangana Ranaut’s 'Emergency'

New Delhi: Author Coomi Kapoor has decided to sue the makers of the film Emergency, helmed by Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha MP Kangana Ranaut, for breach of copyright and defamation caused by the allegedly distorted narration of historical incidents, The Telegraph has reported.

“They told me they were doing a movie on Indira Gandhi. I gave it to them. That’s my stupidity, because they said we are only using one chapter. The contents are from all chapters. Indira Gandhi’s life is in the public domain. Don’t cite the book and present wrong facts,” Kapoor was quoted as saying to the newspaper.

Kapoor said that despite two legal notices, the film continues to bear the disclaimer that it is based on her book The Emergency along with Jaiyanth Vasanth Sinha’s Priyadarshini.

Kapoor's lawyers in their April 3 notice to Ranaut's Manikarnika Films – in which Ranaut is a director – and Netflix (where the film is being streamed) have referred to six alleged historical inaccuracies including that it shows that Gandhi went personally to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and threatened him into declaring an Emergency without calling a Cabinet meeting. It also refers to journalist Nikhil Chakravarty's arrest under Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) as wrong.

Kapoor in her case has claimed that the 2021 agreement with Manikarnika Films and her publishers Penguin Random House India did not allow distortion of facts and it was specifically mandated that Kapoor's name could be used "subject to the prior approval of the author in writing" – which was not allegedly not taken.

Manikarnika Films countered Kapoor's lawyers on April 10 and said that her book was not the sole reference for the film and there was no obligation to have the script approved by the author. The company also said that Kapoor had given them “absolute and complete intellectual property rights” on the book.

Kapoor, who had not watched the film when it released in January, only saw it after it was streamed on Netflix.

Ranaut's film was earlier scheduled for release on September 6, 2024 but was postponed following a clearance row with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) as Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) and various Sikh organisations alleged that it had misrepresented Sikhs. It was released on January 17.

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