Madras HC restrains Studio Green from releasing Kanguva in case ...
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court issued an order restraining Studio Green from releasing Suriya Sivakumar starred 'Kanguva' film without paying Rs 20 crore to the official assignee appointed by the court.
A division bench of Justice G Jayachandran and Justice CV Karthikeyan directed KE Gnanavel Raja representing Studio Green to pay the decreed amount before November 13 to release Kanguva on the scheduled date.
The official assignee claimed that Gnanavel Raja did not pay Rs 1 crore ordered by the court, moved an application to alter the order passed by the bench allowing Studio Green to release Kanguva by paying the amount fixed.
When the matter was taken for hearing the counsel for Studio Green submitted that Rs 1 crore was paid a few minutes ago, which the applicant also accepted.
The counsel for the assignee submitted that the respondent KE Gnanavel Raja is manipulating the court by creating an image that he dont have money to deposit the decree amount, whereas, he deposited Rs 100 crore to Reliance Entertainment in another suit filed against him.
Gnanavel Raja settled the decreed property in favor of his wife, to get away from the case, he contended.
The counsel for Studio Green, Niranjan Rajagopalan submitted that if the release of the film was interrupted everyone including the applicant has to suffer, as I will lose the revenue and couldn't pay the decree amount.
The counsel for the assignee objected to the submission and submitted that the respondent is dragging the issue for the past 5 years and getting order in favor of him to get release the films which the production house has produced and continues not to pay the decree amount, he submitted.
The official assignee was assigned by the court to recover the debts due of Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead), announced as an insolvent businessman.
Arjunlal Sunderdas was accused of cheating investors several crores of money by luring them to invest in his finance, real estate and other companies.
He also decided to produce a film in association with KE Gnanavel Raja by investing Rs.40 crore. It was alleged that between 2011 and 2012 Arjunlal paid more than Rs.12 crores, however, due to the financial crunch he backed off from the project midway. The production house couldn't repay Arjunlal's money as it invested all the money into the film project.
In the meantime, Arjunlal was announced as an insolvent businessman and the film production house repaid Rs 2 crore to him.
The official assignee moved the High Court to direct the production house to repay the balance Rs 10 crore with 18 percent annual interest from 2013.
However, Gnanavel Raja objected to this and claimed that he had given Hindi remake rights of three of his Tamil films to Arjunlal for his investments.
In 2019, a division bench allowed the application of the official assignee and directed Gnanavel Raja to deposit Rs 10.35 crore with interest.
Since the order was not complied with, the official assignee now moved another application to attach all the future films of Studio Green including Kanguva.
