Ashutosh Gowariker accused of plagiarism  

Ashutosh Gowariker's ambitious project Mohenjo-Daro is in a spot of bother. The filmmaker has been accused of plagiarism by TV serial director Akshayaditya Lama, who claims he is the original writer.

Akshayaditya Lama, director of popular shows like 'Kumkum' and 'Kkusum', has issued a legal notice to UTV-Disney, Ashutosh Gowariker and Hrithik Roshan, seeking a stay on the film. According to Lama, while he was working as an assistant director for Gadar: Ek Prem Katha between 2002 and 2003, he had sent Ashutosh his script on a film that was based in the Mohenjo-Daro era via his friend and editor Jaswinder Saluja. He was told that Ashutosh was not interested in making a period drama immediately after Lagaan. 

Akshayaditya has reportedly stated that he registered the same script under the Copyrights Act with Ministry of Human Resources Development in 2007 with the title 'Samrajya', which was later re-registered as 'Mohenjo-Daro' by him in February 2010. He added that, two days later, Gowariker registered the same name with a similar script. After several enquires, when Lama was sure that Mohenjo-Daro has a similar plotline to his own film, he decided to approach the filmmaker but did not receive any response.

Ashutosh Gowariker has not responded to these accusations publicly, but his legal team deny the allegations.