Last week Justice R.I. Chagla of the Bombay High Court refused to stay the release of a Hindi Movie "Thank God" noting that the movie is due to be released on 25th October this year and the application for urgent listing is filed on 18th October even though the release date was announced in the beginning of last month on 09th September.

Rejecting the prayer for interim relief filed by Azure Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the Bombay High Court passed the order "Thus, at this stage, it will not be possible to consider the application for Ad-interim relief, particularly, considering that the Defendants have sought time to file an Affidavit-in-Reply to the Interim Application, as the Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 as well as Defendant No.4 have disputed the claim of the Applicant/Plaintiff."

The movie stars Ajay Devgan, Sidharth Malhotra and Rakul Preet Singh.  The dispute raised by Azure according to the suit is that there were significant breaches committed by T-Series and Maruti. The breaches were that from the trailers of the film, it was perceived that the laboratory had been engaged by Maruti directly without involving Azure. The breaches had been of such a nature that Azure had been induced to give up multiple rights in the film without getting any counter benefits. Plaintiff-Azure is also aggrieved that the defendants had not yet paid ₹4.50 crores towards film production and ₹50 lakh towards Azure’s contingent share as per the terms of the agreement even though the film had reached the post-production stage. As per the suit, this was the essential condition.  

Case Details:-

INTERIM APPLICATION (L) NO. 33390 OF 2022
IN
COMMERCIAL SUIT NO.33386 OF 2022
Azure Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. …Applicant/  Plaintiff
 Versus
Maruti International & Ors., …Respondents/ Defendants