Production House 'Lyca' moved court in Hyderabad too, alleges filmmaker Shankar

Lyca Productions, producers of 'Indian-2' starring Kamal Haasan, has moved a court in Hyderabad too on the same issue pending before the High Court here, senior counsel for S Shankar, the director of the film, alleged on Wednesday.

The counsel made the submission when the appeal from Lyca Productions came up for hearing after a month before the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy. However, senior counsel for Lyca Productions denied the allegation. The issue raised before a lower court in Hyderabad was a different one and has nothing to do with the litigation pending before the Madras High Court, he added.

Originally, Lyca Productions had moved a single judge for a direction to Shankar to complete the shooting of Indian-2 and to restrain him from taking up any other project, till then. As the judge did not pass any order as prayed for, it approached the first bench with the present appeal. Holding that any order might precipitate the matter, the bench on April 22 had directed the parties to sit together and settle the issue amicably.

When the matter came up again later, Shankar's senior counsel told the judges that no solution was arrived at the meeting. While Shankar was prepared to give bulk dates after June, for which Kamal Haasan had also agreed, Lyca insisted that Shankar sign a bond to the effect that he would not take up any other project and hence talks failed, he added.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing after summer vacation. When the matter came up before the bench on Wednesday, the same tug of war continued with the senior counsels for both the parties accusing each other for the stalemate. The bench adjourned the matter by three more weeks, granting time to the single judge, before whom the very first application from Lyca to injunct Sankar from taking up any other film project was pending, to pass his orders.