Anil Kapoor's Fanney Khan, Shahid Kapoor's Batti Gul Meter Chalu Bring More Legal Trouble for Prernaa Arora's KriArj Entertainment
Bhagnani has filed an FIR with the Economics Offence Wing to get the proper rights for the films.
2018 looks to be one really bad year for Prernaa Arora and her production house, KriArj Entertainment. The production house has been in the news over the legal battle between them and John Abraham's production house for the rights of Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran. John Abraham's team accused KriArj of non-payment of dues, which KriArj refuted and alleged that John Abraham is playing dirty.
However, trouble didn't end for them with just one movie. KriArj had to back out of two other movies they were producing. One is Fanney Khan (starring Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Rajkummar Rao), for which T-Series is the producer along with Anil Kapoor and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Then there is Kedarnath (starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan), where Ronnie Screwvala has taken over as the producer. Now T-Series is also looking to take over Shahid Kapoor's Batti Gul Meter Chalu as the sole producer.
But that's not the end of the story. Producer Vashu Bhagnani has now taken issue with KriArj Entertainment over the distribution rights of the film. Bhagnani has alleged that Prernaa and Arjun N Kapoor (co-founder of KriArj) had sold the distribution rights to both Batti Gul Meter Chalu and Fanney Khan to him. However, T-Series claim full rights to the movies and when the case got dragged to legal discourse, had the Supreme Court rule in their favour.
As per a report in Mid-Day, Bhagnani has filed an FIR with the Economics Offence Wing to get the proper rights for the films. His lawyer, Vibhav Krishna, told the publication, "KirArj has sold the India theatrical distribution to my client for Rs 10 crore. Rs 5.5 crore was to be paid when signing the agreement on December 16, 2017, and the rest, a week before the release [of the film]. Since Prernaa needed money, my client paid her Rs 8.5 crore in advance. Now, T-Series tells us we don't have rights to distribute the film."
The lawyer also accuses KriArj of violating a bulk contract. He continues, "Bhagnani's company, Pooja Entertainment And Films Limited, entered into a bulk deal to get the theatrical distribution rights in India for Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran, Fanney Khan, Batti Gul Meter Chalu, Kedarnath, and a couple of other ventures. As for a deal made for PadMan, that my client had also invested in, Kriarj Entertainment had instructed Sony Pictures to pay Bhagnani a sum from the money collected after the release. The payment was to be made by April 15, but it hasn't been done."
Earlier, Bhushan Kumar of T-Series had told media that Prernaa is taking a break from producing movies to sort out all the legal hassles. Going by the number of cases being filed against her production house, that break might go a little longer.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 19, 2018 12:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).