Makers of Suriyas's 'Kanguva' and Vikram's 'Thangalaan' ordered to deposit Rs 1 cr before release, here's why

Stills from Kanguva and Thangalaan

The Madras High Court on Monday flagged the release of two big-budget Tamil movies -- ‘Thangalan' starring ‘Chiyaan' Vikram and ‘Kanguva' featuring Suriya. A division bench of the high court comprising Justices G. Jayachandran and C.V. Karthikeyan directed 'Studio Green' production company run by K.E. Gnanavelraja to deposit Rs 1 crore each for the two films with the official assignee on or before Wednesday (August 14).

Suriya-starrer Kanguva will be released in theatres on October 10 while Vikram's film 'Thangalaan' will be released in theatres on August 15. Both the films are backed by the same production house who have been instructed by the court to make the deposit.

The orders were passed on an execution petition filed by the high court's official assignee, who had been entrusted with the task of recovering the debts due to insolvent businessman Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead).

The official assignee had filed an application in the high court in 2016 stating that Sunderdas, accused of cheating people of several crores of rupees by allegedly luring them to invest in his finance and real estate companies, had decided to co-produce a movie in association with Studio Green in 2011 by investing Rs 40 crore.

Sunderdas had paid Rs 12.85 crore to the production house on different dates between September 2011 and October 2012, but decided to back off midway due to paucity of funds.

The production house, however, expressed its inability to repay the entire amount to him saying it was spent on pre-production work.

The insolvent got back only Rs 2.5 crore, thereby leaving a balance of Rs 10.35 crore. The official assignee urged the court to direct the production house to deposit Rs 10.35 crore with 18 per cent interest since December 2013 so that the depositors with the deceased Sunderdas could be repaid their money.

Studio Green opposed the application filed by the official assignee claiming it had offset the amount due to Sunderdas by giving him the Hindi remake rights of three Tamil movies titled 'All in All Azhaguraja', 'Biriyani', and 'Madras', and asked him to sell those rights using his contacts in Bollywood.

However, the production house could produce only a photocopy of the purported agreement between them to prove its claim, stating the original agreement was destroyed in the 2015 floods.

The division bench on August 29, 2019, allowed the official assignee's application after holding that the claim made by the production house did not inspire confidence.

(with inputs from IANS)