- Amaal Mallik accused Tanishk Bagchi of stealing credit for Saiyaara's title track and non-payment of royalties
- Mallik claimed Tanishk copied songs including Saiyaara from Pakistani and other composers' works
- Tanishk recreated popular songs like Aashiq Banaya Aapne and Masakali, drawing criticism from Mallik
Composer-singer Amaal Mallik launched a scathing attack on composer Tanishk Bagchi over allegations of plagiarism involving the Saiyaara title track and claims of orchestrating paid PR campaigns against him. In a lengthy post on X, Amaal bluntly accused him of stealing credit for songs while Bagchi claimed that he has not received any royalty for the track.
“If I speak up about how you bagged the film #Saiyaara and stole the song right under Faheem Abdullah and Arsalan Nizami's nose to make Mohit Suri bring you into the film, then you'll know. They will, out of respect, not support me, but if they have the guts to stand up, they should release #SaiyaanMere and the world will know who actually made the song and who casually took credit,” Amaal wrote.
Mallik alleged that Tanishk Bagchi wronged the film by taking credit from the original composers, Faheem Abdullah and Arsalan Nizami. “Stop crying now like a little b*h about royalties when I had told you and many others to stand united, kept calling you time and again trying to explain why the fk you shouldn't do #AashiqBanayaAapne and #Masakali. But you wanted to make the bucks then, so fair enough,” he added.
Amaal also defended Yash Raj Films, accusing Tanishk of ingratitude. “@yrf is the clearest, most legal and easiest production house to work with, and they won't retaliate because of Mohit Suri's intervention, the same man who got you to delete your petty post. You are composing for the next Yash Raj film, but you have no gratitude for the money and effort spent by them to make your copied song Saiyaara a global anthem... Shame.”
Amaal Mallik further claimed that several of Tanishk's compositions were copied from existing works. “You're a bloody thief; your originals are also not originals. They are complete copies of Pakistani songs, other composers' stolen songs, folk melody lifts, or just straight copies from even people's YouTube covers,” he wrote. “You copied #Saiyaara from #HumnawaMere, and out of respect, Jubin Nautiyal had to keep quiet as he was part of the same film,” he added. Singer Jubin Nautiyal sang the romantic song “Barbaad” in Saiyaara.
Tanishk, best known for recreating hit songs, also composed a recreated version of Himesh Reshammiya's title track from Aditya Datt's 2005 romantic thriller Aashiq Banaya Aapne for Vishal Pandya's 2018 erotic thriller Hate Story IV.
He also recreated A. R. Rahman's popular song “Masakali” from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi-6 (2009) as “Masakali 2.0” for a T-Series music video in 2020.
Amaal Mallik then dared Tanishk Bagchi to speak against T-Series head Bhushan Kumar, “the same man you talk sh** about in every party and every gathering.” He argued that Tanishk, despite T-Series owing him crores, would not speak against the music company-cum-production house because of the stronghold it enjoys over the music industry.
Last week, Tanishk Bagchi claimed that he is yet to receive Rs 8 lakh in royalties for the hit title track of Saiyaara. Production house Yash Raj Films, however, said that all dues were paid as per the contract.
“Whatever YRF had paid me, that nominal amount was used for the live and mix work... what was left was zero, yes. That's what I earned from a song so big,” Bagchi wrote on social media.