A Kerala court has delivered a major verdict in a 13-year legal battle involving the 2012 Mohanlal-starrer film Karmayodha. On December 17, 2025, the Kottayam Commercial Court ruled that the film’s story, screenplay, and dialogues were plagiarized from writer Reji Mathew. As a result, the court has ordered director Major Ravi and producer Haneef Mohammed to pay ₹30 lakh in compensation to Mathew.
The court found that Major Ravi had originally engaged Mathew to develop the script on human trafficking back in 2011 but later released the film crediting others. Despite a 2012 court order to acknowledge the dispute during the film’s release, the makers failed to do so, leading to this final judgment which also grants Reji Mathew the absolute copyright over the work.
