Shahid Kapoor-starrer Jersey’s release was postponed due to plagiarism case, reveals producer: ‘Release cleared now’

Shahid Kapoor’s sports drama Jersey was all set to hit the screens on April 14. But days before the release, the producers announced that the film’s release was being postponed by a week. There was a lot of speculation behind the reason for the delay with some suggesting that the producers wanted to avoid a clash with the Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2, which has registered strong advance bookings. Now, a producer of Jersey has revealed that it was in fact a court case that forced their hand and delayed the film. Also read: Shahid Kapoor reacts to reports of Jersey delaying release to avoid KGF 2 clash

Jersey stars Shahid, Mrunal Thakur, and Pankaj Kapur. The film follows a washed-out cricketer as he tries to return to the cricket pitch and regain his lost pride and self-worth. The film was delayed earlier too. It was set to release on December 31, 2021, but was postponed due to rising Omicron cases in India.

However, the recent delay was due to legal hassles, as the film’s producer Aman Gill revealed. “We were all geared up to release our film Jersey this holiday weekend, however, we didn’t want to go ahead and plan a release until the courts gave us a favourable order, and with hearing scheduled for Wednesday, we had no time to plan for the Thursday release hence we decided to postpone the release by a week to April 22, till we got such an order. Today on Wednesday we got a favourable order, which clears the way for our release next week,” he told ETimes.

According to a report in Bar and Bench, a case against the film was filed by writer Rajneesh Jaiswal, who claimed that the producers had plagiarised his script titled The Wall. Rajneesh alleged that his script–which was registered with the Screenwriters Association in 2007–and Jersey had a lot of similarities, and that the release of the film would cause him massive financial loss.

The producers of Jersey argued that the film was a remake of the 2019 Telugu film also titled Jersey and Rajneesh never objected to that film. As per Bar and Bench, Senior Advocate Dr Birendra Saraf, appearing for producer Allu Aravind, contended that Rajneesh’s claim that he was not aware of the Telugu film was inconceivable since it was watched by 10 crore people and is available on OTT platforms.

The Hindi version of Jersey is directed by Gowtam Tinnanuri, who also helmed the original. Presented by Allu Aravind, Jersey has been backed by Dil Raju, S Naga Vamsi, and Aman Gill. With the legal proceedings behind it, the film will now release on April 22.