The SABC says Noseweek and Sylvia Vollenhoven don't have the right to screen the Project Spear documentary to small audiences since the documentary doesn't belong to them.
Noseweek and Sylvia Vollenhoven showed Project Spear at The Baxter theatre in Cape Town and earlier this year planned to show it at the Franchhoek Literary Festival but the SABC got an interdict to stop it.
The SABC commissioned Sylvia Vollenhoven to produce Project Spear a year and a half ago, but then abruptly told her that the documentary "was too sophisticated for SABC2's audience".
Project Spear is a feature length documentary detailing an alleged ex-MI6 spy who presented the South African government with a plan - dubbed Project Spear - to recover billions of rands misappropriated by apartheid-era bankers, officials and politicians from state coffers.
The SABC has now filed a case in the South Gauteng High Court demanding the return of all the footage and material as well as a DVD of the documentary.
On Thursday the SABC told TV with Thinus that "we owe this material. We have commissioned it and paid for it and we want all of it to be returned. We said to them you need to bring everything back to us. You don't have the right to own or show this. It's a matter of principle."
"People are making it sound as if it's about the content. This has got nothing to do with the content. The fact is it doesn't belong to them and they're showing it to people," said SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kgangayo.
"They can't show something which belongs to the SABC without the SABC giving permission. The SABC is going to court to compel them to bring back all the material and research."
