Lingaa producer directed to deposit Rs. 10 crore

The producer asked to deposit Rs.3 crore in the bank account of the Registrar through online transfer by Thursday evening.

December 11, 2014 03:25 pm | Updated November 28, 2021 12:45 pm IST - MADURAI:

A still from 'Lingaa'.

A still from 'Lingaa'.

The Madras High Court Bench in Madurai on Thursday permitted ‘Rockline’ Venkatesh, producer of Rajinikanth-starrer Lingaa, to release the movie on Friday on condition that he deposit Rs.5 crore, besides providing a bank guarantee for an equal sum to the credit of the Registrar (Administration) of the Bench.

A Division Bench of Justices V. Dhanapalan and V.M. Velumani ordered that the movie be released by 1 a.m. Friday, the actor’s birthday, if the producer could deposit Rs.3 crore in the bank account of the Registrar through online transfer by Thursday evening. The rest of the money as well as the bank guarantee could be handed over by Monday.

The order was passed on a writ appeal filed by an aspiring filmmaker, K.R. Ravi Rathinam, alleging theft of his script for making the movie. Holding that the appellant could not invoke the writ jurisdiction of the High Court to redress his grievance, the judges gave him four weeks to initiate civil as well as criminal proceedings before the lower courts.

However, “in the interest of justice and taking into consideration the principles of equity, justice and good conscience,” the Bench directed the film producer to deposit Rs. 10 crore as a pre-condition for permitting the release of the movie. Assuming that the film was scheduled for release on Friday afternoon, the judges initially ordered him to deposit the entire sum at least an hour before the release.

When Sanjay Ramaswami, counsel for both Mr. Venkatesh and Mr. Rajinikanth, objected to the imposition of such a condition and asked “what about our equity” Mr. Justice Dhanapalan replied: “Letting you release the movie is the equity for you. You can take the matter on appeal to the Supreme Court if you want. But this is our order. We will not change it.”

In the post-lunch session, senior counsel R. Muthukumaraswamy requested the court to give at least a week to the producer to make the deposit. Accepting his plea partly, the judges ordered that Rs.3 crore be deposited on Friday and the rest be given to the Registrar, along with the bank guarantee, on Monday.

A few minutes after the order was modified and subsequent to a conversation with his clients on the phone, Mr. Ramaswami represented the matter once again before the judges and wanted to know if the movie could be released at 1 a.m. Friday. But the judges made it clear that it should not be released without Rs.3 crore being deposited in cash or by demand draft or through online transfer.

When counsel sought the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) number of the court’s bank account to make the online payment immediately, the judges asked him to coordinate with the Registrar who, in turn, was directed to deposit the entire sum in an interest-bearing account in the Indian Bank branch on the court campus until further orders.

Later in the evening, the Registrar told The Hindu that the producer had transferred Rs.3 crore to an official account of the court at State Bank of India. “I shall deposit the money in the Indian Bank branch on our campus tomorrow as directed by the court,” he said.

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