Rajnikanth and Sonakshi Sinha in a still from Lingaa
Tamil superstar Rajinikanth's new film
Lingaa will release as scheduled on Friday after its producer agreed to abide by an order of the Madras High Court asking him to deposit Rs 5 crores by 12 pm tomorrow. The producers of
Lingaa have also been directed to furnish a bank guarantee of an additional Rs 5 crores.
Producer Rockline Venkatesh has said that he will abide by the court order and release the film as scheduled.
Rajinikanth told the press, "One week before the release of this film, some four-five people came and claimed that the subject, the story is theirs. To this a couple of people commented on Twitter that if there is a Rajini film that actually has a story, then we must see it! It is a beautiful story but it does not belong to those four people. It belongs to (writer) Pon Kumaran. He has taken inspiration. I liked it a lot. In my career, to get such a subject, I consider myself lucky."
Lingaa, co-starring Bollywood actress Sonakshi Sinha, has been accused of plagiarism by filmmaker K R Ravi Rathinam who alleges that the makers of
Lingaa stole the storyline from the script he wrote for a film titled
Mullai Vanam 999. On December 3, a High Court judge dismissed Mr Rathinam's writ petition and advised him to file civil or criminal proceedings instead.
Last Monday, Rajinikanth filed a caveat application to prevent a Madras High Court bench from passing an interim order of any sort against Lingaa without hearing his stand.
Lingaa is directed by K S Ravikumar who also shares writing credit with Pon Kumaran.
Lingaa is meant to release tomorrow, Rajinikanth's 63rd birthday, in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.It also stars South actress Anushka Shetty and has a musical score composed by AR Rahman.