NEW DELHI, May 13 (UPI) -- India's most expensive TV soap opera has run into rough weather after best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford complained to a court the script was plagiarized from one of her novels.
India's Supreme Court Tuesday halted a lower court order that had approved the broadcast of the 260-episode serial.
Bradford, who flew into Calcutta, India, had on May 7 obtained an injunction from Calcutta High Court to stop the broadcast of the soap opera, "Karishma: A Miracle of Destiny," saying it was lift from her book "A Woman of Substance."
The Calcutta High Court had put the show on hold and ordered an investigation into the charges leveled by Bradford and her film-producer husband Robert Bradford. However, the soap opera producer, Sahara India Media Ltd., got the injunction order reversed from a two-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday.
But Bradford's lawyers Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court, which restrained Sahara TV from broadcasting the 260-episode show being billed as the mother of all soap operas. Bradford's lawyers told the court she held the copyright for the novel and she did not authorize anyone to make or produce any serial or film based on it.
Lawyers for the soap-opera maker, Sahara Media Entertainment Co., were unavailable for comment.
India's famed Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor was set to make her television debut with the mega serial, which spans three generations. Kapoor plays a double role, metamorphosing from a 22-year-old girl into a 67-year-old grandmother. The series was shot in exotic locales, including in New Zealand, and contains 52 songs.
Soap opera director Akashdeep was quoted by newspaper as saying, "It's not the story of 'A Woman of Substance.' I don't know why people are comparing my serial with (the) Bradford novel."
Seventy-year-old Bradford has 18 novels to her credit. One of her 15 other bestsellers is "Three Weeks in Paris."
