Chennai, March 11 The Madras High Court on Tuesday stayed the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) provisional attachment of property worth Rs 10 crore belonging to renowned Tamil filmmaker S. Shankar in the 'Enthiran' copyright case.
A division bench, comprising Justice M. S. Ramesh and Justice N. Senthilkumar, granted the stay while hearing a petition filed by Shankar.
The ED had taken action in connection with a copyright infringement case related to the 2010 movie 'Enthiran'.
The ED had attached Shankar's property on February 17 following a complaint by writer Arur Tamilnadan, who alleged that the story of Enthiran was based on his work, 'Jugiba', without proper authorisation.
Since copyright violations fall under the scheduled offences listed in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the ED took action under its provisions.
However, in June 2023, a single judge of the Madras High Court dismissed Tamilnadan's civil suit against Shankar, ruling that copyright protection cannot be claimed over mere ideas or concepts.
The judge also observed that there was no evidence proving that 'Enthiran' was a direct imitation of 'Jugiba'.
When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, Senior Advocate P. S. Raman, representing Shankar, argued that the ED's action was arbitrary, especially in light of the previous court ruling that found no copyright violation.
He also contested the ED's claim that Shankar had earned Rs 11.5 crore from 'Enthiran', asserting that his earnings came from other projects.
Therefore, he argued, the ED had no grounds to attach the filmmaker's property.
The bench questioned whether the ED could initiate such an action based solely on an individual’s complaint.
"Can the ED register cases merely because someone alleges that a crime has been committed? Why didn’t the ED wait for the outcome of the complaint before attaching the property?" the court asked.
In response, ED's counsel Vishnu referred to the ruling in Vijay Madhanlal Choudhary, arguing that the agency had the legal authority to act on individual complaint.
He further contended that the property attachment had not caused any harm to Shankar and that there was no need for judicial interference. After hearing the arguments, the court directed the ED to file a counter affidavit and adjourned the case to April 21.
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