LAHORE-An Intellectual Property Tribunal on Tuesday extended till Dec 16 stay on exhibition of Maula Jatt 2 on petition moved by a man claiming violation of copy right Act. The Intellectual Property Tribunal (IPT) Presiding Officer passed the order with directives to famous Pakistani film director Bilal Lashari, Chief Executive Encyclomedia PR Ammara Hikmat, also producer of the film and their team not to release the movie.

Director and producer Serwar Bhatti of 1979 film Maula Jatt had moved the petition through his counsel saying that his client is the producer of a Punjabi Film “Maula Jatt” and holds all the rights in relation to this movie including title and cinematographic works and the Censorship Certificate was also issued by Central Film Censor Board, Islamabad in the name of petitioner as a producer thereof. He said that the petitioner has obtained registration of the copyrights in the cinematographic work slide certificate No.33742.  The petitioner said that the respondents have no right to use the title, script, characters, dialogue, poetry, music etc in respect of this work but the respondents Bilal Lashari, Chief Executive Encyclomedia PR Ammara Hikmat and others have been infringing the petitioner’s legal rights in this matter.

 Advocate Khurram Chughtai, counsel of Bilal Lashari and others, opposed the petition arguing that his clients have not infringed nor have any intention of infringing any right of the petitioner. He argued that one of his clients Ammar Hikmat holds the copyrights in script of film, whereas, the petitioner has no right as per his own certificate in respect of title name, brand /mark.  The counsel said that Bilal Lashari has already moved for obtaining registration of trade mark in respect of name of the movie. He produced copy or certificate bearing No.35962. He prayed the court to set aside the suit.