Pungi 'Panga': Iranian Band Barobax Apologises To Pritam For Plagiarism Accusation

Composer Pritam Chakraborty can now finally heave a sigh of relief. The composer, who had been accused by Iranian band Barobax claiming that the song  Pyaar Ki Pungi from the spy thriller Agent Vinod had beats lifted from their track Soosan Khanoom, has received an apology from the band. It seems that the band could not prove that Pritam has plagiarized the song and hence, they withdrew the case and submitted an apology.

"We decided to withdraw the case filed against Mr. Pritam and others for the copying of a song of  Barobax, an Iranian band. After looking into the defences of Mr. Pritam and the analysis made by various experts, we have realised that Mr. Pritam is right and there is no copying of our song and so we understood that we can not built a good case. We do not want to get into any further legal issue and so we are withdrawing the case as we know that Mr. Pritam's Lawyer Henal Vakharia  is an expert in Copyright laws  and there will be strong ciminal action otherwise made out against us", they said in a statement.

On his part, Pritam's lawyer Henal Vakharia further informed, "They decided to withdraw the case after realising that we had a strong  case. For probably the first time in India in a music infringement case, a defence as elaborate was set up. In music, what is apparent to a layman, as similar, may be poles apart from a technical perspective. It was a challenge to convince all that there was no plagiarism. We broke the entire composition threadbare and have proved that there were no copyright issue in any which way while preparing for the case, I actually learnt a lot on the technicalities of music and Pritam also picked up many nuances of law. There was no way that the plaint could be sustained and hence they had to withdraw and give a public apology."

Agent Vinod starred Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor and the song pyar ki pungi became a major chart-buster even before the film released.