Jaya biopic: Notice on appeal filed by Deepa

A division bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Krishnan Ramasamy, before whom the appeal came up for hearing on Thursday ordered notice returnable by two weeks to AL Vijay and Vishnu Vardhan Induri, producers of the movie “Thalaivi,” and Gowtham Vasudev Menon, producer of the web series “Queen”.

The single judge Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy on December 11 had declined to grant any stay on the release of the web serial and the film. On noting that the producer has taken a categorical stand that the web series would be based on the book and that it would a fictional rendition, the single judge had wondered if the applicant was entitled to an interim injunction in the alleged posthumous exercise of right to privacy or personality rights on behalf of her late Aunt.

“As regards personality rights, even on a prima facie basis, it is difficult to accept that the applicant has inherited the personality rights of her aunt, Justice Ramamoorthy had said. Now, Deepa in her appeal had submitted that she had the opportunity to watch the web serial and said she was “shocked” to know that Menon had included several scenes to portray her aunt late Jayalalithaa in bad light. She further contended that in the name of alleged fiction, Menon had copied in verbatim the entire private life events of her aunt.