Madras HC clears Thangalaan release as producer pays up Rs 1 crore

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court allowed Studio Green, film production house to release 'Thangalaan' on scheduled date as Rs 1 crore deposited complying with Court order.

A division of Justice G Jayachandran and Justice CV Karthikeyan ordered no impediment in releasing 'Thangalaan' after perusing the compliance affidavit submitted by KE Gnanavel Raja representing Studio Green that Rs.1 crore was deposited to the bank account of official asignee complying the Court direction.

The bench asked the counsel Niranjan Rajagopal representing the production house regarding the release date of Kanguva as the another Rs. 1 crore has not paid to the official assignee to release the film. The counsel submitted that the release date was not finalised.

Also Read: Madras HC orders Gnanavel Raja to deposit ₹1 crore to release Thangalaan and Kanguva

After the submission the bench posted the matter to August 28 for further proceedings.

The bench heard an application moved by an official assignee of the High Court, who was assigned to recover the debts due of Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead), announced as 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 Thangalaan and Kanguva.

After hearing the case on August 12 the bench ordered KE Gnanavel Raja to deposit Rs 1 crore each before the release his highly expected and extravagantly produced films 'Thangalaan' and 'Kanguva' on the scheduled dates.

It may be noted that actor Vikram starred Thangalaan is slated to be released on August 15 world wide and actor Suriya Sivakumar starring Kanguva is expected to be released in the second week of October.