UK-based music label Oriental Star Agencies, which manages the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's work, on Friday claimed Indian company T-Series has used the legendary singer's 1991 number "Kinna Sona" in "Marjaavaan" without proper rights.
The company said it had signed Khan, who popularised Sufi qawwali across the globe and spawned many an imitation, as an OSA artiste right at the beginning of his career in the 1980s.
When contacted, T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar dismissed the claim, saying the song comes from their catalogue. "Marjaavaan" is a T-Series production.
"It is our song," Kumar told PTI.
OSA co-founder Mohammad Ayub also said his company had signed Indian record producer Bally Sagoo as its artiste.
"Kinna Sona" was first recorded by OSA in 1991 with Khan and Sagoo, Ayub said.
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"It was in a studio in Coventry (UK) that the song was recorded. It was released later in the year. That was the first version of the song and it was never recorded again. We have the copyright. A lot of people have been making the cover version of the song but the original is ours. Nobody has taken permission. Nusrat had signed the contract with us," Ayub told PTI over phone from UK.
Ayub said Bollywood previously used Khan's songs without consent and for a UK-based company like theirs it is hard to take people to court in India.
Khan, who has legions of followers in both India and Pakistan and died at the young age of 48 in 1997, was associated with OSA throughout his career and the company has hundreds of his recordings, the company said.
OSA said the T-Series' first version of "Kinna Sona" came in 1995. However, OSA had recorded the original in 1991 and released it later in the same year.
An OSA representative also cited a YouTube video of Khan performing "Kinna Sona" live in Birmingham in 1993 with an OSA watermark.
Kumar said "Kinna Sona" was with them since 1995 and his company has only recreated it for the Siddharth Malhotra starrer "Marjaavan", which releases this week.
"I can't give you the version because I'm not completely aware of what other people are claiming... in the past as well, they (OSA) made the same claim for 'Tere bin nai lagta dil mera'... nobody was able to prove the rights," Kumar told PTI.
"It ('Kinna Sona') is a 20-year-old song in our catalogue, which we have recreated. And it is already there so obviously there will be some paperwork, which must have been done at that time. We have used that song from our 'Bewafa Sanam' catalogue," he added.
Khan's work has been copied numerous times in various Bollywood films -- "Mera piya ghar aaya", "Tere bin nai lagda dil mera", "Sanu ek pal chain na aave", "Ye jo halka halka suroor hai" and "Tere rashq-ae-qamar" being some of them.