Mumbai: 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.
"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.