The battle between Shirish Kunder’s ‘Kriti’ and Aneel Neupane’s ‘BOB’ has taken an interesting turn, as the former has slapped a legal notice on the Nepali filmmaker for copyright infringement.

Neupane had earlier alleged that after seeing so much similarity between BOB and Kriti he was shocked. The maker of BOB also targeted Kunder directly in his Facebook post, saying that he “practically stole the plot and made it into his film”.

At that time, Kunder had said that when BOB was released, his short film was in post-production, which makes it impossible to copy Neupane’s movie. He now has issued a notice, and asked for an ‘unconditional written apology’ from Neupane.

Kunder has also demanded that Neupane should not make any written or oral comment about ‘Kriti’. “Assuming your position is correct that the two films are so similar, and then it is you who has infringed our client’s copyright,” the notice stated.

Meanwhile, Kunder has said that he will continue to make short films like Kriti, which features Manoj Bajpayee, Neha Sharma, Radhika Apte and Manu Rishi, as it is easy to release them, and has no censorship restrictions.

“Unlike my feature films, Kriti is what I have written and I made it the way I thought,” Kunder said. “As a digital medium, you don’t have to fight with censor. It is more liberal medium. I will surely make more short films along with feature films.”

Shirish Kunder’s comeback short-film ‘Kriti’ has come under scrutiny, after news went viral that it is copied from a Nepali film ‘Bob’. It is been said that the writer has lifted the plot almost completely, and there are similarities between a number of scenes.

‘Bob’, directed by Aneel Neupane, went online last year. Neupane took on Facebook, and said that he was “shocked to find so much similarities” between Bob and Kriti, and alleged that “Shirish Kunder practically stole the plot and made it into his film”.

Kunder, meanwhile, termed all allegations as baseless, adding that it is virtually not possible to copy the idea, as when ‘Bob’ was released ‘Kriti’ was already in the post-production. He added that these untrue allegations “just spoil the fun of everything”.

“That short film (‘Bob’) was released on May 12 whereas we shot ‘Kriti’ in February, after which it was in post-production,” Kunder pointed out. “How is it even possible to ‘lift’ the idea, unless I was time travelling? These allegations are technically, factually and logically, baseless.”

The movie featuring Manoj Bajpayee, Radhika Apte and Neha Sharma has received positive reviews from both fans and critics, after its release on Wednesday. Bajpayee is essaying a writer’s role, while Apte is playing his friend/therapist, and Neha is portraying a agoraphobic girlfriend.