Hyderabad: The title refers to the death of “her beloved servant” Rafatunnisa who died during childbirth. According to Mr Acharya, the photographs that were displayed were not original images.
He alleged that Mr Yajnik had taken photographs of 200 items which Mr Acharya had legally procured from Ms Evelyn Pope, the second wife of Edward Pope; Edward Pope was married to Princess Niloufer from 1963 to 1989.
He said, “Mr Yajnik visited me in New York City on Dec. 8 and 9 last year. He came over to my place and took photographs of 200 items.”
Mr Acharya stated that he first met Mr Yagnik when he came with Mr B.V. Papa Rao, adviser to the Telangana government, who met Mr Acharya in New York. “Mr Papa Rao evinced interest and put me in touch with Yajnik,” Mr Acharya said.
He said he and Mr Yagnik, of Visual Quest India, signed a memorandum of understanding temporarily assigning rights to Mr Yagnik to display and exhibit the photographs, books, papers and articles on the Princess, for which he had rights from Niloufer’s legal heirs.
He said “Other than that, he has no rights to anything but Mr Yajnik released two photographs to an English newspaper. When we enquired with the newspaper, they said they had received the pictures from Mr Yajnik.”
Even with regard to the title of the exhibition, Mr Acharya said Mr Yajnik had come to know of it “only after I shared the documents” with him.
“When I questioned Mr Yajnik on e-mail, he replied that he had the rights to do it. Then I sent an e-mail informing him that it amounted to breach of contract and the MoU is no more in existence. A legal notice was sent on Jan. 7,” Mr Acharya said.
Mr Acharya, a graduate of Yale University, has been living in the US for 22 years, where he works as a consultant in New York. He said he was a family friend of the Princess, and flies down to the city every year to mark her birth anniversary.
Responding to the e-mail, Mr Yagnik sent a legal notice claiming rights over the photographs, Mr Acharya said and alleged that he was resorting to a “fraud” with him and the legal heirs of the Princess.
When this was communicated to the legal heirs of the Princess, they granted Mr Acharya power of attorney to take legal recourse against Mr Yagnik.
Denying any dispute, Mr Yagnik said he being a curator had collected rare images from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the Department of Archives of the Telangana government and displayed them in Hyderabad.
He said Mr Acharya had been credited as collector for the exhibition.
Referring to the legal notices, he said he had not sent any legal notice nor had he received any from Mr Acharya.
He said he only had an e-mail from Mr Acharya which was being looked into by his lawyers. They have to decide the legality of the e-mail and jurisdiction of the issue as the MoU was signed in New York.
He claimed that Mr Acharya had no right to terminate the contract as the MoU does not allow it. According to New York laws, Mr Yajnik said, the photographer who had taken the photographs had the rights over it and not the family of the Princess. They had rights only to the photographs that were taken by Edward Pope.
Mr Papa Rao said there was no dispute on the issue and the government has only facilitated the meeting of the collector and the curator on a common dais to place the rare images for public display.
