Defamation Case filed against ‘Yashoda’

Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s Yashoda has encountered legal trouble, with a defamation case filed against the film.

A doctor in Hyderabad filed the lawsuit against the film over the use of his hospital’s name.

Yashoda tells the story of a woman who becomes a surrogate mother to raise funds for her sister’s surgery.

She is taken to a hospital named Eva, where she discovers that several other women there are becoming surrogates as they are poor and need money as she does.

Commercial surrogacy is banned in India, and the film revolves around a racket that illegally “rents out wombs”.

Dr Mohan Kumar, owner of Eva IVF Hospital, has claimed that the film has misused the name Eva and it is “damaging the reputation of the hospital”.

In the lawsuit, Dr Kumar has named the directors Hari-Harish and the producer Sivalenka Krishna Prasad.

The court heard the case and has now postponed the film’s OTT release date.

Yashoda will not hit streaming platforms until at least December 19, 2022, while the case continues.

It is reported that the court has issued notices to those named in the lawsuit, seeking their replies.

Yashoda was released in theatres on November 11 in five languages: Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Samantha was hospitalised.

After revealing that she had been suffering from the autoimmune disease Myositis, there were claims her health deteriorated and that she was rushed to a hospital in Hyderabad.

But the claims were dispelled as her spokesperson said the actress was absolutely fine.

The spokesperson said: “There’s absolutely no truth in Samantha being hospitalised.

“These are baseless reports. She is healthy and fine at home.”

Samantha previously spoke about her battle with Myositis.

She said: “It was a difficult time for me when I did the dubbing for Yashoda. Given that the release date was announced already, I had to dub in a very difficult health condition.

“But, I’m a bit adamant. Once I committed to dub for myself, I wanted to do it. I’m glad I did it.”

Whilst speaking about her experience with Myositis, Samantha emotionally admitted:

“Some days are good, and some days are bad.

“There are days when I feel like I can’t take one more step further. And there are days when I look back, I feel surprised that I have come so far.

“I’m here to fight. I’m not the only one, I know that. There are a lot of people who are fighting many battles. We win in the end.”

The actress also ridiculed a few news articles that presented her condition to be worse than it actually was, jokingly saying:

“I also saw a lot of articles saying that my condition was life-threatening. The stage I’m in is not life-threatening. It’s difficult, but I’m here to fight.

“At least for the time being, I’m not going to die.”