India soap runs afoul of novelist

Bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford has obtained an Indian court injunction forbidding a television channel from airing, until further notice, a soap opera she said copied from her novels.

India’s Sahara Television had already pulled “Karishma -- The Miracles of Destiny” off the air a day after its debut on Monday, following an interim order by the Supreme Court.

The New York novelist stated in her case for infringement of copyright that the soap drew from three of her novels, particularly “A Woman of Substance,” one of the top 10 bestselling fiction titles of all time.

Sahara denied the charges. “We have nothing to do with the novels,” lawyer Ejaz Maqbool said in New Delhi. “Even if there are similarities, no one has exclusive rights to an idea.”