Actor Vishal Krishna Reddy has filed an original side appeal before a Division Bench of the Madras High Court challenging a single judge’s September 12, 2023 order directing Stone Bench Films, producers of his upcoming movie Rathnam, to deposit his balance remuneration of ₹2.6 crore to the credit of a civil suit filed against him by Lyca Productions.
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The appeal has been listed before the Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and R. Sakthivel on Monday, March 25, 2024. It has been filed against the order passed by Justice P.T. Asha who had found that Stone Bench Films had engaged the actor for a total remuneration of ₹8 crore for Rathnam, written and directed by Hari, but had already paid ₹5.4 crore to him.
The order was passed following a garnishee application filed by Lyca Productions which had preferred a civil suit in 2021 seeking a direction to the actor to pay ₹30.05 crore to it, along with interest at the rate of 30% per annum, for the principal loan amount of ₹21.29 crore that the production house had extended to him in 2019 to repay the debts to film financier G. Anbuchezhiyan.
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Lyca told the court that the actor had taken a loan of ₹15 crore from the financier in 2016 for his movie titled Marudhu but was unable to repay it. Hence, the production house had cleared the dues for him since he promised to repay the amount with interest. The promise was not kept forcing the company to file the civil suit for recovery of the dues.
Since the actor did not repay the loan despite continuing to act in various movies and taking remuneration for it, Lyca had filed a garnishee application in 2023 seeking a direction to Stone Bench Films, the producers of Rathnam which was then tentatively titled as ‘Vishal 34,’ to deposit his balance remuneration to the credit of the civil suit pending in the High Court since 2021.
Justice Asha allowed the application in September 2023 leading to the present appeal.