Copy, paste?

Writer Manoj Mairta has blamed director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra for not giving him his rightful credit in the upcoming film, Mere Pyaare Prime Minister. Reportedly, Manoj has also sent a legal notice to the filmmaker. He says that since he hasn’t received any response in the stipulated 15 days, he will pursue the matter in court. Manoj says that he had registered the script in 2014 before he contacted Rakeysh. Eventually, they entered into an agreement in April, 2015. It was only a while after Mirzya released in 2016, that he began working on Mere Pyaare Prime Minister. 

The movie revolves around an eight-year-old boy living in a Mumbai slum who wants to build a toilet for his mother. However, after the film’s completion when its first look was unveiled in 2017, Manoj learnt that he was not getting the credit as promised. When his repeated requests failed to get an appropriate response, he approached the Screen Writers Association (SWA) in October 2017. 

When both, Manoj’s and Rakeysh’s scripts were evaluated, the Dispute Settlement Committee (DSC) observed that the latter’s was ‘merely a rewritten and polished’ version of the writer’s work.