Salman Khan has responded to a copyright infringement suit filed against his blockbuster Bajrangi Bhaijaan, labelling it as an attempt to extract money. In his reply filed in the Bombay High Court, he has termed the movie idea non-copyrightable as it is based on known facts about partition and issues associated with Hindus-Muslims.

Just before the movie's television premiere in October, petitioner Mahim Joshi had moved the HC, alleging that the film had been inspired by a script written by him. Joshi has made Salman Khan, Star India, writer KVV Prasad and director Kabir Khan as parties in his petition.

While Prasad and Star India too have stuck to the non-copyrightable argument, Joshi has now said that if the respondents' contentions were to be accepted, it would be difficult to claim copyrights on stories based on similar ideas e.g. child trafficking.

Kabir Khan wasn't allowed to file his reply as he presented it after the deadline set by the court. He, however, has responded in line with Salman Khan's reply. Kabir has listed 25 points to show the additions made by him to the story after his company entered into an agreement with Salman's company to work on the film.

Besides calling Joshi's story as "nascent" and hence not possible to make a movie on it, Salman has said that he was not associated with the movie as a producer, but through his company - Salman Khan Ventures Pvt Ltd. Therefore, Salman says, the firm should have been made a party.

Salman's reply also calls the movie idea as "a part of folklore" and lists a few movies, including Dharamputra, Garam Hawa, Ga dar Ek Prem Katha, which were based on a similar theme.

Joshi has said that all the parties have deliberately relied on a one-page story note and chosen to ignore details spanning over 25 pages and a power point presentation attached to the suit, to show dissimilarities between the two projects. This point has been reiterated to negate Star India's reply which shows 18 dissimilarities between the film and Joshi's script.

Joshi's reply, filed through Legal Associates, says that Salman finds similarities between the movies listed by him, but says that Joshi's story and Bajrangi Bhaijaan are "totally different".

Seeking dismissal of the plea, the respondents have said that it is silent on how Joshi's story reached them. Joshi's response: the script had been circulated in the industry as he was looking for a producer. To the claim that Joshi had entered into an agreement with Suresh and Vivek Oberoi's Yashi Multi Media, giving up his rights in the story, and therefore he could not file a case, the petitioner has said that he never gave up his rights in the script of the movie that was never made.