Madras HC revokes order, Kanguva to hit theatres after Gnanavel deposits Rs 1.60 crore

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court revoked the order restraining Studio Green, a film production house, from releasing Kanguva, and allowed the film to release on November 14, after the production house deposited Rs.1.60 crore in compliance with the court order.

Justice Abdul Quddhose modified his order and directed the HC registry to encash the demand draft produced by the production house and directed to deposit the amount as FD in any interest-bearing bank.

The plaint was moved by Fuel Technologies International alleging that it had made an agreement with Gnanavel Raja, one of the studio partners, in 2016 for the dubbing rights of three north Indian film projects under Studio Green banner. It was submitted that Rs 6.60 crore was given to the film production house as per the agreement.

However, out of three projects – two were dropped, and Gnanavel Raja didn’t give the dubbing rights for Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (2018) by violating the agreement. The plaintiff’s company submitted that Raja returned Rs 5 crore and promised to pay the balance, but did not honour it. He had dragged on for 5 years without settling the balance amount. The plaintiff sought the court to direct Raja to pay Rs 11.16 crore as part of the balance and interest.

The judge had restrained Raja from releasing the film on November 14, and directed him to deposit Rs 1.60 crore. Similarly, a division bench of Justice G Jayachandran and Justice CV Karthikeyan allowed Kanguva’s release after Raja deposited part of the decree amount to the official assignee appointed by the court.

Senior counsel PS Raman for Raja filed an application seeking to modify the order issued by the bench restraining the film release, as his client had paid Rs 6.41 crore, out of the decreed amount Rs 10.35 crore. It was also submitted that the balance Rs 3.75 crore will be settled before December 11. The official assignee sought to settle the matter with a one-time settlement.

After the submission, the bench modified its earlier order by allowing to release Kanguva on November 14, with a condition to deposit the balance decree amount within the stipulated time and posted the matter to December 12 for further proceedings.

The official assignee was appointed by the court to recover the debts due of Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead), announced as an insolvent businessman. It was alleged Arjunlal invested Rs 40 crore in association with Raja to produce films.

Since, Arjunlal was accused of cheating investors by several crores by luring them to invest in his finance, real estate and other companies, the official assignee was appointed to recover the invested money from Raja. The assignee claimed that Raja has to repay the balance Rs 10 crore with 18% annual interest from 2013.

However, Raja objected to this and claimed that he had given the 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 Raja to deposit Rs 10.35 crore with interest.