With just two days left for the Pa Ranjith directorial Thangalaan to hit theatres, the Madras High Court has ordered the producers to deposit Rs 1 crore before the film’s release. The order was issued in connection to a 2014 dispute accusing the production company Studio Green’s owner KE Gnanavel Raja of owing Rs 10,35,00,000. 

Gnanavel has  had business ties with a realtor and financier known as Arjundas Sunderdas who was declared insolvent and later passed away. An Official Assignee had taken over Sunderdas’s finances in order to determine what debts and credits Sunderdas owed or was owed. The Assignee discovered that Gnanavel owed Rs 10,35,00,000 to Sunderdas and had filed a petition to that effect in 2014. The Madras High Court ruled in favour of Assignee in 2019.

Ahead of Thangalaan and Kanguva’s (starring Suriya) releases, the Assignee filed an execution petition at the Madras HC. Hearing their case, a Division Bench of judges G Jayachandran and CV Karthikeyan on August 12, ordered Studio Green to deposit Rs 1 crore for each film to the Assignee on or before August 14. The court also ordered Ganavavel to submit a compliance report on the same day of the payment.

What is the case against Studio Green?

In 2014, the Assignee filed a petition in the Madras High Court saying that Gnanavel had owed Sunderdas Rs 10,35,00,000. Gnanavel, at the time, contested this by claiming that payment had been made in different manners including granting Sunderdas the right to the Hindi-remake of Biriyani (2013), All in All Azhagu Raja (2013) and Madras (2014). 

In 2019, the court ruled in favour of the Assignee. They also added that the evidence provided for the transfership of the three films rights, “did not inspire any confidence”. The court further directed Gnanavel to pay the full sum of Rs 10,35,00,000 with an interest of 18% per annum.