Legal squabble may stall film release

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Here's some bad news for Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan's fans. The Chandigarh High Court has recently issued a stay order on Nehle Pe Dehla, in which the two stars play lead roles. The court directive comes in the wake of a complaint lodged by the co-financer of the movie Samdarshi K Jaiswal againt Mahendra Dhariwal. The former has accused the later of duping him of Rs three crore!

According to the complaint, Jaiswal had financed the film Dada, starring Mithun Chakraborty in 1997. The negative right was on Jaiswal's name, but he had not been paid his share of interests and profits to the tune of around Rs 45-50 lakh. The film was transferred from Vijaya Processing Lab to Gemini Lab and released.

Again in 2005, Dhariwal had given Jaiswal a written commitment that after the release of Maa Tujhe Salaam he would pay back the dues to the co-financer, but the cheque issued by him bounced, charged Jaiswal.

Jaiswal also claims that Dhariwal is not paying any heed to the court's summons issued to him on February 12. Now Jaiswal is determined not to allow Nehle Pe Dehla to be released till his dues are cleared. He has also threatened to take further judicial action if the film is released against the court's stay order.

On the other hand, Mahendra Dhariwal claims that he has not yet received any such summon and that his film is ready for release on March 2. Describing all news about stalling the release of Nehle Pe Dehla as a rumour, Dharival points out that had he had received such summons Adlabs would not have carried on with the distribution of the film. Interestingly, a finger has also been raised at Adlabs managing director Manmohan Shetty and there are allegations that even he is involved in the matter

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