plagiarism in the name of inspiration is something that fashion designers have been facing for a long time while the fact that copies of their designs are easily available in markets like chandni chowk karol bagh and lajpat nagar comes as no surprise for the designers now even plush boutiques and young designers are copying their creations and calling it inspiration what fuelled the debate and discussion on plagiarism further in the fashion industry was designer rohit bals recent facebook post accusing a designer sm of copying his velvet embroidered bandhgala jacket according to a source the sm in the post is mumbaibased designer seema mehta this was confirmed by another source close to seema who told us she is aware of the issue and this has been going on for a week now she is out of the country at present the source also added that not just copies of rohit bals designs but those of manish malhotra and other designers can also be found at her store when we contacted seema she refused to comment on the issue but also didnt deny the allegations in his post bal posted a picture of his creation alongside the copied design he has also said that he wont let go of the matter easily i am compiling a list of many more such designs with images there are lots of bigger fish that need to be exposed all of us with the fdci need to try and curb this outright plagiarism legally theres not much we can do since i have tried the process is long and cumbersome the only solution is a press expos or some sort of social media campaign i am gathering as much information on this as i possibly can this is one isolated example we need a larger stronger representation of such examples of these parasitical plagiarists said rohit bal in his facebook postnothing new last july during the couture week designer jj valaya stirred quite a debate with his statement on the lack of originality and me toos in the fashion fraternity nothing new last july during the couture week designer jj valaya stirred quite a debate with his statement on the lack of originality and me toos in the fashion fraternitycopying a designers work is the easiest way to earn money ritu kumarthough examples of designers accusing someone of copying their designs are many there are fewer names to quote when one talks about designers who went to court among those who took the legal route are ritu kumar suneet varma and reynu taandon kumar won a copyright infringement lawsuit against kolkatabased designer nina talukdar who she had accused of stealing her sketches and designs designer suneet varma had accused fellow designer aki narula of stealing a dress from his fall 2003 collection for the movie bunty aur babli varma sued narula for copying his blue poncho and multihued pants which rani mukerjee wore in the film and demanded damages of rs2 crore suneet