A courtroom apology has finally drawn a line under one of Bollywood’s most closely watched legal face-offs this year. Filmmaker Santosh Kumar has issued an unconditional apology to Aditya Dhar over his public allegations against Dhurandhar The Revenge, prompting the Bombay High Court to close the defamation suit and giving the film’s team a significant reprieve after weeks of unwanted headlines.
The flashpoint came in March 2026, when Kumar alleged at a press conference that Dhurandhar The Revenge had borrowed from his script D-Saheb, which he said was registered with the Screenwriters Association in 2023. Dhar responded by approaching the Bombay High Court, arguing that the remarks were defamatory and had caused serious harm to his reputation as a writer-director.
Courtroom Truce Ends The Defamation Clash
The matter was heard before Justice Arif Doctor at the Bombay High Court, where Kumar’s counsel submitted an unconditional apology for the statements made during the March 30, 2026 press conference. Following that, Dhar’s side told the court that he did not wish to pursue the defamation proceedings any further or seek damages in the matter.
With both parties aligned on that position, the court disposed of the suit. The order recorded that no further issues survived in the defamation case. At the same time, the court clarified that Kumar remained at liberty to pursue independent legal proceedings on his claim relating to script authorship, and that any such action would be considered separately on its own merits.
The development gives Dhar and the film’s team breathing room at a moment when the conversation around the project had risked being overshadowed by litigation rather than cinema. It also resets the public focus onto the film itself, which had found itself at the centre of a legal and creative ownership debate.
Why The Film Stayed In The Crossfire
That shift back to the movie matters because Dhurandhar The Revenge is not a minor title in the current Hindi film landscape. Directed by Aditya Dhar and backed by Jio Studios and B62 Studios, the 2026 Hindi spy action thriller stars Ranveer Singh, Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan and Sara Arjun in key roles.
The film continues the story of an undercover Indian intelligence operative working through Karachi’s criminal and political underworld, with revenge and national security driving the narrative. It serves as a follow-up to Dhurandhar, which was released in 2025, completing the story across two films.
For Dhar, the court outcome helps restore attention to his work rather than the accusations around it. For Ranveer Singh and the ensemble, it clears some of the noise that had hovered over the film’s public discourse, allowing the project to return to being judged on its scale, cast and storytelling ambitions instead of a courtroom clash.
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