MUMBAI: Within hardly 15 days of its announcement, Ketan Mehta‘s biopic of Mountain Man Dashrath Manjhi, has reportedly hit a roadblock.

Bhagirath Dashrath Manjhi, son of Dashrath Manji, has now issued a public notice saying that he had exclusively assigned the making rights to filmmaker Neerraj Pathak.

According to the notice, no other person has the consent to make a film on his late father. The notice further states that he has the right to take legal action against anyone who attempts to infringe the personal rights of his family.

In his absence, Mehta‘s actress-turned-filmmaker wife Deepa Sahi said, "It is a true life story so anyone can make a film based on it. It is part of our history so no one can have a copyright to it."

Earlier in July 2010, director Manish Jha had announced a film titled Manjhi based on the life of Dashrath Manjhi. The film was to be produced by Sanjay Singh, who had earlier announced to produce Udaan in which Manoj Bajpai was slated to play the lead. But the project never saw light of the day.

It may be interesting to note that Dashrath Manjhi, in his determination to cut a distance between Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya district from 75 km to just one km, single-handedly carved a 360-foot-long, 25-foot-high and 30-foot-wide road by cutting a mountain of Gehlour hills for 22 years from 1960 to 1982.