Prakash Jha Wins Legal Battle Over ‘Aarakshan’

The Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programme Producers upheld Prakash Jha’s complaint against the use of the title Aarakshan as part of the title of a serial on Imagine channel. The title is registered in the name of Jha’s production house. The Association has written to the channel to desist from using the title in the name of its serial.

After the making of Raajneeti, Prakash Jha had begun the casting of actors for his next venture, ‘Aarakshan’ and had even named Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgan in his film on student politics and job reservations.  But the film ran into title trouble when a channel, NDTV Imagine, used the name of his film in the title of its upcoming show ‘Aarmanon Ka Balidan – Aarakshan’. Since Jha’s production house had already registered the title, he tried to convince the makers of the show to drop the word ‘Aarakshan’ from their title. But he soon filed a legal notice against them as they refused to budge.

It was rumoured that director Prakash Jha wanted to cast Katrina Kaif in the movie following the success of ‘Raajneeti’ but the actress opted out paving the way for Deepika Padukone. ‘Aarakshan’ will be shot in Bhopal and is expected to release in late 2011.