A poster of the film Om Shanti Om

Mumbai, Aug. 7: For King Khan, OSO has not exactly turned out to be om shanti om.

First, yesteryear star Manoj Kumar went to court because he does not like a scene in the film, and now an upcoming scriptwriter has followed suit alleging Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Production plagiarised one of his scripts.

Ajay Monga, who has written films like Madhur Bhandarkar’s Corporate and Fashion, has alleged that SRK’s Om Shanti Om — the title of the film is also a Vedic peace mantra — is a lift from a script he had submitted to the star’s production house for consideration.

As proof, Monga is waving a registration certificate for the script, dated September 2005, from the Film Writers’ Association.

OSO, written and directed by Shah Rukh’s close friend Farah Khan, released in November 2007 and became one of Bollywood’s biggest money-spinners. But it immediately ran into a controversy when Manoj Kumar objected to a scene parodying him.

The actor moved court this week demanding that the scene be dropped or the film’s telecast on TV be stayed.

A stay on OSO’s global television premiere on SET Max on August 10 is also what Monga demanded.

Judge V.M. Kanade yesterday rejected the plea, but directed all parties to file their replies to the suit within four weeks. The next hearing is on September 29. Shah Rukh, wife Gauri, Red Chillies, Farah and co-writer Mushtaq Sheikh are the respondents.

“We will challenge the order before a division bench,” said Virendra Tulzapurkar, Monga’s lawyer.

“When the film released, Monga was shocked to find it was a copy of the script he had given the producers in December 2006. He had wanted Shah Rukh to play the lead. But since the star was shooting in Malaysia, Monga was told the script would be emailed to him. That is the last he heard from them,” he added.

The writer’s petition says his script titled Silent Movie “had a storyline where a junior artiste, Raju, falls in love with a big actress who is already engaged to a superstar. Raju on one occasion saves the actress’s life and, in return, the actress spends one day with Raju. Eventually, a rift develops between the actress and her fiancé, after which she starts liking the junior artiste.” The co-writer of the script is Hemant Hegdehad.

In the film, Shah Rukh plays a junior artiste, Om, who is besotted with a top actress, Shanti, (played by Deepika Padukone) and rescues her from a fire. The actress is later killed by her producer-husband. Om, too, is killed.

Monga filed a complaint with the Film Writers’ Association of India in December.

“We carefully examined the case and agreed that the first half of OSO was similar to Monga’s script, but it was not a straight lift. Since that does not imply a copyright infringement, we did not entertain the matter,” said Sooni Taraporevala, association vice-president.

The lawyer says people are scared of the might of Shah Rukh Khan, who also has the backing of top producers Yash Chopra and Karan Johar.

“My client is ready to take this matter up to the Supreme Court. Besides the first half, which is a complete lift from Monga’s script, the latter half of the movie is plagiarised from the cult movie Madhumati,” says Tulzapurkar.

Rinki Bhattacharya, daughter of Bimal Roy who made Madhumati, is also mulling action against Red Chillies. “OSO is not a lift from my father’s film Madhumati. It is an exact copy of Madhumati.”

Monga had approached SRK’s office and Farah after OSO’s release, demanding Rs 1.25 crore as compensation. Now, he has demanded a share of the profits.