HC rules Hari Puttar not copyright violation of Harry Potter

New Delhi, Sep 22 (UNI) Delhi High Court today dismissed Hollywood studio Warner Bros' petition for injunction against Mirchi Movies' forthcoming film Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors for alleged copyright violation.

Warner Bros filed the case against the movie as the title 'Hari Puttar' is similar to 'Harry Potter', Warner's franchise of J K Rowling's 'Harry Potter' book series, and, therefore, borders on infringement of its intellectual property rights.

But senior lawyer Arun Jaitley, who appeared for Mirchi Movies, contended that 'Hari Puttar' is an Indian name, meaning god's son, therefore, there was no copyright violation.

The Indian movie 'Hari Puttar' is about a lonely kid's adventure.

Directed by Lucky Kohli and Rajesh Bajaj, the film stars Sarika, Jackie Shroff, Zain Khan, Swini Khara, Saurabh Shukla, Vijay Raaj and Lilette Dubey.

It was earlier scheduled to be released on September 19, but was deferred to September 26 due to the ongoing case proceedings.

Warner Bros, the owner of the 'Harry Potter' trademark, sought the court's intervention to restrain the producer of the film from releasing it with its present title.

Justice Reva Khetrapal found there was no ''commonality'' between the names and allowed the producer of the Bollywood film to release it on scheduled on this Friday.

UNI SNG SBC HT1750