Sivakarthikeyan suppressed facts: Producer Gnanavelraja

After actor Sivakarthikeyan filed a petition before Madras High Court seeking direction to film producer KE Gnanavelraja to settle his full remuneration for having acted in Mr Local, produced by Studio Green movies, Gnanavelraja on Thursday filed a counter alleging the actor suppressed several facts in his petition.

Advocate Vijayan Subramaniam, appearing for Gnanavelraja, submitted the counter before Justice M Sundar, hearing a petition filed by Sivakarthikeyan seeking a direction to Gnanavelraja to settle a pending remuneration of Rs 4 crore.

Gnanavelraja said since the movie did not go well at the box office, he faced a loss of Rs 20 crore. “Due to the loss, distributors had approached me to compensate for the loss. When we revealed this to Sivakarthikeyan, he said we need not pay the pending remuneration to him,” Gnanavelraja said.

On recording the submissions, the judge adjourned the matter to April 7.

Sivakarthikeyan submitted that as per the agreement, Gnanavelraja had to pay Rs 15 crore as remuneration. “He paid Rs 11 crore and failed to pay the remaining. Also, the producer had not remitted the Tax Deducted at the Source (TDS),” the actor noted.

He further said the IT department issued a show-cause since the producer had not remitted the TDS for Rs 11 crore. The actor had also filed another plea challenging the IT notice. The IT had deducted Rs 94 lakh from Sivakarthiyen’s account for assessment years of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Subsequently, the actor filed a suit.