When Madhubala, her father sued BR Chopra for Dilip Kumar’s Naya Daur; director said ‘things went horribly wrong’

Filmmaker BR Chopra was one of the pioneers of Hindi cinema in the 1950s who directed classics like Naya Daur, Kanoon, Gumrah and produced films like Waqt, Dhool Ka Phool, Ittefaq via his production house BR Films. The older brother of filmmaker Yash Chopra, BR Chopra was a notable figure in the Hindi film industry since the early 1950s, and was the one who gave a break to Yash in his early days. But one of the biggest controversies of his career came in the form of a lawsuit where he was sued by film actor Madhubala after she exited his film Naya Daur.

Naya Daur, which starred Dilip Kumar in the lead role, was the story of ‘man vs machine’ and was released at a time when India was still a young country struggling to come to terms with industrialisation that had swept the western countries. In the early days of the shoot, Madhubala starred with Dilip Kumar, and the two were on the verge of breaking up their real-life relationship. Dilip Kumar and Madhubala had been dating each other for a few years but Madhubala’s father Ataullah Khan had raised objections to the relationship. After she had shot for 10 days of the film, her father refused to allow her to shoot the film as it required the unit to travel on an outdoor schedule. Madhubala had a heart condition, and her father reasoned that it would be dangerous for her to travel outdoors. The film director said that he had already specified the requirements of making the film so it came as a shock to him when Madhubala and her father sued BR Chopra.