Rani Mukerji’s comeback film ‘Hichki’ has landed in trouble. Australia-based author Nishant Kaushik has claimed that he had submitted a similar storyline, with a speech disorder protagonist, to the director of ‘Hichki’, Siddharth P Malhotra, more than two-and-a-half years ago. Siddharth P Malhotra falsified Nishant’s claims that he creatively contributed to ‘Hichki’. The filmmaker states, “I had acquired the rights to make ‘Front of The Class’ as a Hindi motion picture in 2013. Nishant Kaushik’s claims are baseless. He was contacted through Exceed Entertainment and I haven’t met him even once. We were looking for writers who could come up with a take on the ‘Front of The Class’. We had approached several writers including Nishant. He was given a brief for the film but the story and the slant he came up with was not what we were looking for. So we did not proceed with him and Exceed was informed about my decision immediately. This was in 2015. Several prominent writers like Amole Gupte and Abbas Tyrewala have worked on the story of ‘Hichki’ and we have obtained No Objection Certificates (NOCs) from them. I thank each one of them for being the creative contributors of ‘Hichki’. We have credited all the writers who have worked in our film, so it is ridiculous that we will not give credit to anyone in particular who has worked hard and contributed to ‘Hichki’.” Malhotra must be aware that controversies, plagiarism and Bollywood films go hand-in-hand.
