CUTTACK: The Commercial Court, Cuttack, has declared Minakshi Dutta as the rightful owner and custodian of manuscripts of Byasa Kabi Fakir Mohan Senapati as his great-granddaughter.
The ruling came on Wednesday while giving the final decision on the dispute over the publication of Fakir Mohan’s autobiography titled ‘Mo Jibani’. Dutta had raised the dispute by contending that noted linguist Debi Prasanna Pattnaik was in the process of publishing the autobiography without her consent.
Initially, the court had issued an interim injunction on August 17. Senior advocate Gautam Acharya argued the case for Dutta. In its final decision, the court permanently restrained the defendant from publishing the autobiography as well as other manuscripts which were handed over to him in pursuance to the MoU signed on August 18,2019. The MoU had been signed between Dutta and Pattnaik for digitisation for Fakir Mohan’s manuscripts that were lying with her.
Dutta claimed in her suit that she is the great-granddaughter of Fakir Mohan Senapati and has in her custody his original manuscripts including those of Ramayana and Mahabharat as written by him. She had claimed that Pattnaik had acquired the manuscripts from her as part of the MoU. However, he was in the process of publishing the autobiography allegedly without her consent.
The court further directed the defendant to return all manuscripts - both original as well as digitised versions - to Dutta.