The Madras High Court on Wednesday (August 14, 2024) cleared the decks for the theatrical release of ‘Chiyaan’ Vikram-starrer Thangalaan after the film’s producer K.E. Gnanavelraja complied with an order passed by the court on Monday to transfer ₹1 crore to the account of the Official Assignee of the High Court.
A Division Bench of Justices G. Jayachandran and C.V. Karthikeyan recorded the submission made by the film producer’s counsel Niranjan Rajagopal, which stated that the money had been deposited with the Official Assignee. The court observed that there shall be no impediment in releasing the movie worldwide on Thursday (August 15, 2024).
The issue pertained to an agreement between Mr. Gnanavelraja and businessman Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead) in 2011 for co-producing a movie by investing ₹40 crore each. As per the agreement, the latter had parted with ₹12.85 crore but decided to back off midway due to a paucity of funds.
Subsequently, in 2014, the High Court declared the businessman as an insolvent and directed the Official Assignee to take stock of all his assets and liabilities so that hundreds of people who had deposited money in his real estate and finance companies could be repaid their dues.
While conducting an assessment as directed by the court, the Official Assignee found that Mr. Gnanavelraja had to repay ₹10.35 crore to the insolvent, and therefore, filed an application before the High Court in 2016 seeking a direction to him to repay the amount with 18 percent interest from 2013.
The Division Bench allowed the application in 2019 and directed the producer to repay the amount with interest. However, since this order was not complied with, the Official Assignee moved the High Court periodically before the release of every other movie produced by Mr. Gnanavelraja.
The High Court had passed orders for the deposit of ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore before the release of those movies. Accordingly, this year, the Official Assignee had filed an execution petition seeking to attach Studio Green’s new movies Thangalaan as well as Suriya-starrer Kanguva, which is due to be released in October.
Passing orders in the execution petition on Monday, the Division Bench had ordered that both the movies could be released only after the producer deposits ₹1 crore each. Accordingly, the producer filed a compliance report with respect to Thangalaan on Wednesday and obtained permission for its release.
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