Nilotpal Mrinal, author of Dark Horse, has alleged that 30% of the story of TVF's Aspirants is lifted from his book. He will be taking legal action for the same as he has not been given due credit.
Sahitya Akademi Award winning writer Nilotpal Mrinal has alleged that TVF’s show Aspirants has been plagiarised from his book Dark Horse. Created by Arunabh Kumar, the web series follows the lives of UPSC aspirants staying at Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar. The season finale of the series dropped on May 8.
In a long post on Facebook, Mrinal shared a photo of Arunabh Kumar and wrote, “Have shared Anurabh’s photo and details of the meeting with him to prove that he knew me as the writer of Dark Horse and was also aware of my interests to make a film based on the book.”
Mrinal has written that he is going to initiate legal action against TVF for copying most of the story from his book and not crediting him for the same.
Nilotpal has also shared that he had met TVF’s Arunabh Kumar and suggested that a movie or a web series could be made based on his book Dark Horse. He even wrote that the meeting went well and Kumar had liked his idea. According to him “30 percent of Aspirants is based on his book, but that was not a concern for the people sitting in Mumbai.”
He shared, “People must have thought writers like Nilotpal come and go every day. Recently Satya Vyas’s Banaras Talkies was also stolen, what could these people do?”
The author further shared, “I’ll fight for Dark Horse, if I lose it will be the loss of Dark Horse’s writer, but if I win, it will be a win for every struggling writer whose stolen stories have turned into hit films/ web series.”
Mrinal says that after watching the web series, he has arrived to this conclusion and wants to take the matter to court to get justice. He also wrote, that his “claims are based on discussion with the law and copyright specialists.”
Responding to Mrinal’s allegations, TVF released an official statement, that reads, “TVF is a creator-centric organization which has been nurturing writers since inception and takes their rights very seriously. A social media post has alleged that our show “Aspirants” has been inspired from another literary work. The Company has recieved a notice in this regard and we will fully cooperate to investigate the matter.”
Aspirants — the five-episode series stars Naveen Kasturia, Shivankit Singh Parihar, Abhilash Thapliyal, Namita Dubey and Sunny Hinduja, among others.
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