New Problem For Sajid Nadiadwala

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala must’ve heaved a sigh of relief when the Calcutta high court ordered that the Apni toh jaise taise song from his Housefull need not be deleted till the date of next hearing which is slated for June. For, for all practical purposes, the run of the film is likely to be exhausted by then and it wouldn’t make much of a difference if the court asked him to delete the controversial song after a month. It may be mentioned here that late Prakash Mehra’s son has dragged Nadiadwala, HMV Saregama and T-Series to court over the inclusion of the song in Housefull, claiming that HMV Saregama had no authority to sell to Sajid Nadiadwala the rights to use the song in his film, and, likewise, T-Series had no authority to market CDs and audio cassettes of Housefull containing the song which was originally penned and recorded by Prakash Mehra for his film, Namak Halaal.

Anyway, barely had Nadiadwala got back his smile following the court order than Tamil film producer Thenappan claimed that Housefull was largely based on his Tamil film, Kathala Kathala.According to Thenappan, Sajid Nadiadwala had not acquired the remaking rights of Kathala Kathala from him but had still made Housefull based on it. Kathala Kathala, it may be mentioned, was directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and starred Kamal Haasan, Prabhu Devaa, Soundarya and Rambha. Says Thenappan, “Housefull is about 60% similar to my film. I want Rs. 3 crore as compensation.”

Obviously, Thenappan knows, he is being unreasonable but he is probably pushing his luck. On his part, Nadiadwala has asked Boney Kapoor to intervene in the matter and settle it as Thenappan is known to Kapoor. Interestingly, Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kambakkht Ishq was also based on a Tamil film produced by Thenappan. For Kambakkht Ishq, however, Nadiadwala had bought the remaking rights by paying Thenappan for the same.