Coyright infringement case on Kaappan dismissed, film to be released on September 20 

Madras High Court has dismissed the plagiarism charge on Kaappaan director KV Anand and writer Pattukottai Prabhakar. Kaappaan will therefore be released without any hassles on September 20. The complete judgement of the case will be released on Monday.

The legal issues began when a person named A John Charles claimed that the base script of Kaappaan had been lifted from his story registered with the title Saravedi in 2016. He had stated that the dialogues featured in the teaser of the Suriya-starrer were similar to the scenes in his script.

Following the judgement, KV Anand and Pattukottai Prabhakar met the press along with their lawyer today. Advocate Krishnamurthy, who spoke first, said, "The story of Kaappaan was initiated eight years ago and Anand wrote the script along with Pattukottai Prabhakar after a lot of research. They even registered the script back in 2012. So the case filed by John Charles is baseless."

He added that all the big-budget films are being targetted these days. "Every single film of top actors are facing similar charges now. During the story infringement cases of Vijay's Kaththi and Kamal Haasan's Dasavatharam, the respective judges made it clear that the judiciary system is always available to deal with such disputes regarding censored films. Justice has won again, and we are happy to announce that all the charges have been lifted and the film will have a smooth release."

KV Anand then spoke about the emotional ordeal he had to go through because of the case. "Baseless and fake cases like this demean the legal battles of assistant directors who actually suffer from story theft. The moment the case was filed by John Charles, all the media houses carried news with the headline, 'Did KV Anand steal the story? Will Kaappaan release?' Seeing such things pricked my heart as a lot of people began doubting my credibility."

The filmmaker then went on to explain the flaws in the complaint filed against him. "A 70-second teaser of Kaappaan was released on April 14 and this person named John Charles sent me a legal notice on August 10 saying that my film has a strong resemblance to his script. He had mentioned that I stole his story based on organic farming and interlinking of rivers. But my story follows the travel of an SPG officer who is in charge of the Prime Minister's security. John had also falsely stated that he 'contacted' me during January 2017 and that was when he discussed his story with me. But, I was shooting for Anegan then and I have a strong alibi."

Also starring Mohanlal, Sayyeshaa, Arya, and Boman Irani, Kaappaan has music by Harris Jayaraj. The film was initially meant to be released on August 15, coinciding with Independence Day.