Director of 3 Idiots, Rajkumar Hirani, said that writer Chetan Bhagat was lying that he was not shown the final script of the film.

"I don't know why he (Bhagat) is saying he has not read the final script," he said. Hirani also showed the media a copy of what he said was an interview of the author saying he liked the final script.

"We sat with him for four hours and narrated the script," he added.

"I wanted to see the final script – it was never shown to me. I wanted to see the film before release – it was not shown to me (even though trials had been done for people). What's more, the makers had called me to their office and pressured me several times to withdraw my ‘Based on a novel by' credit, which was by contract. They told me they'd replace it with something like ‘initiated by' – a credit that doesn't exist anywhere in the world," Bhagat had said in his blog.

Hirani said Bhagat had no right to crib about his name being shown at the end because it was part of the contract.

"He signed the contract in 2005 and should have talked to us if he had problems," he said, adding that producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra has given Bhagat all his due payments.

"We have given him credit as decided by the contract," he said.

Reiterating the fact that 3 Idiots was only "inspired" by Five Point Someone, and the film had not borrowed more than 5 per cent from the book, Hirani said, "The plot is entirely different."

"Even if Bhagat claims we have borrowed more than that from the book, we have bought the rights of the book and can legally do it," he said.

High drama was enacted on Friday at a press conference in New Delhi when 3 Idiots maker Vidhu Vinod Chopra asked a journalist to shut up for asking questions on the controversy over the Chetan Bhagat book from where the storyline of the film was adapted.

"Have you read the book? You have not. You shut up," Chopra hollered at a journalist losing his cool even as director Raju Hirani tried to calm the enraged media by apologising.

On Saturday morning, Chopra apologized to the media for his outburst.