In a Facebook post that went viral and later in an interview with Firstpost, screenwriter Jyoti Kapoor has called out that her name is not mentioned in the Filmfare Award nomination for Badhaai Ho, despite the fact that she wrote the story for the film. Now, co-writers Shantanu Srivastava and Akshat Ghildial have withdrawn their names from the nominations list. Srivastava even took to Twitter to say that it is better to lose an award than share it with someone who hasn’t written the story.
Srivastava also told Firstpost that Akshat and he felt it was the right decision. “I wan’t to clarify that we have never met Jyoti and barring the one-liner, the film has no basis in her original story.”
Jyoti lays out in details the development of her story at Junglee Pictures, the producers of Badhaai Ho. She registered her story called Hum Do Humaare Chaar before being hired to develop the screenplay by Junglee. The premise of the registered story is very similar to Badhaai Ho. After a change in leadership at the studio, Jyoti was informed that director Amit Sharma, who was attached to direct, was claiming that he had developed a similar script and Jyoti would not get a credit. “I requested Priti Shahani, president of Junglee Pictures, to at least make sure that I get the (joint) story credit for the film since the screenplay was clearly being developed with other writers. Priti told me that she had already discussed this possibility with Amit and that he had refused to give me any credit whatsoever and that she had no choice. Now that’s what broke my heart. After I protested over email, I was immediately sent a termination notice (for two films that I was writing for Junglee) and asked to return all the money that I had been paid on the approved work so far.””
Eventually, Jyoti did sign a termination agreement with Junglee with a clause that ensures she gets story credit. However, now the Junglee team has allegedly asked award forums to not include Jyoti in any writing nominations Badhaai Ho receives.
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