RAJNEETI controversy..

After clearing hurdles with the censor board and a review committee, Prakash Jha's film Raajneeti came up against, and overcame, two legal ones today.

Two persons moved the High Court seeking a stay on the film's release, due June 4, but the court refused to entertain either. One of the petitioners claimed to be a Congress worker — as reported earlier, some leaders are uncomfortable with certain scenes involving a character who they believe is based on party chief Sonia Gandhi. The other is a scriptwriter who alleged the film's script is based on one of his.

The film, featuring Katrina Kaif, Ajay Devgan, Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar and Manoj Bajpai, had struggled for a "suitable" certificate: a love scene between Kaif and Arjun Rampal had to be shortened from 37 seconds to 18. The Central Board of Film Certification then referred the political drama to a six-member review committee which, incidentally, had some Congress members; they maintained that their suggestions "were unrelated to any similarity between the film and real life".

Petitioner Naseem Khan, who claims to be a Congress worker, says Kaif's character is based on Sonia Gandhi, and the film "defames" her. He has also taken exception to Kaif playing this role.

On Friday, he urged the High Court for urgent relief, since his application in a sessions court is listed for hearing on June 2. But Justice Rajesh Ketkar refused to hear the matter, saying "there was no urgency".

In the other petition, scriptwriter Yogendra Konkar claimed that the film is based on his Rajniti: A Political Saga. His lawyer said Konkar had met Jha and showed him the script and that the writer had sent the script to several filmmakers.

Jha's lawyer said that the director had never met Konkar and that there was no way the script could have been plagiarised. Jha's script had been registered with the Indian Motion Pictures Association in December 2008 and Konkar's script later, in July 2009, Jha's lawyer said.

Vacation judge S J Khathawala said staying the release would cause Jha losses running into several crores. The court observed that the two scripts were different and Konkar has failed to make a prima facie case against Jha.