SC refuses to stay High Court order on Karishma

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">New Delhi: US-based author Barbara Taylor Bradford suffered a set back as her plea to stay the Calcutta High Court judgment allowing telecast of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Karishma - a miracle of destiny</span>, which she alleged is a plagiarised version of her novel <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">A Woman of Substance</span>, would be heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.<br /><br />At a special late evening hearing on Monday, a Bench of Justices N Santosh Hegde and B P Singh heard arguments by Bradford''s counsel R K Jain that the author should not be penalised for her creation as was ordered by the Calcutta High Court early on Monday.<br /><br />The Bench, however, said that since it did not have the entire material before it to pass the necessary order, it would hear Bradford''s plea on Friday.<br /><br />Challenging the High Court order, Bradford''s lawyer Som Mandal had moved the apex court challenging the High Court''s order allowing telecast of the Rs 60 crore serial starring Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor from Monday night and directed the American novelist to pay damages for the delay in serial''s telecast as well as litigation cost.<br /><br />Bradford was asked to pay to Sahara entertainment Rs 1.5 lakh for every week of delay in telecast since May 12, the day when the serial was originally scheduled to go on air, and Rs 10,000 as cost for each day of trial court proceedings and Rs 15,000 as cost for every day of appeal court hearing. <br /><br />The High Court observed the only material for Bradford''s suit was an interview of Akashdeep Shabir, one of the big teams producing the serial, taken by freelance journalist Pammi Somal, in which Shabir claimed to have said the serial was based on <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">A</span> <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Woman of Substance</span>. <br /><br />However, the writer of the serial Sachin Bhowmick and other directors of the mega-serial denied having read the novel and the interview further showed Shabir himself had not read the novel, the high court said. <br /><br />It also said that the copyright law did not protect basic plots and characters and on the basis of what the plaintiff had produced, copyright infringement could not be established. </div> </div>