The Chikkamagaluru JMFC court on Tuesday issued a non-bailable warrant for the arrest of Sandalwood actor Kichcha Sudeep and director of Kannada TV show Vaarasadara, Mahesh. Deepak Patel, a resident and owner of a coffee plantation in Chikkamagaluru had petitioned the court alleging that Sudeep and Mahesh had cheated him of Rs 1.5 crore after damaging his ancestral property for the shooting of Vaarasadara.
According to Deepak’s legal counsel, Sudeep’s lawyer had petitioned the court to get another day’s time for Sudeep to appear for questioning. “He has not appeared for any hearing so far. The court was not happy about it and issued a summons for questioning him. It also issued a non-bailable warrant for his arrest. The court has given the police time till May 22 to produce Sudeep and Mahesh before it. So far, no arrest has been made,” Deepak’s lawyer Suresh said.
Deepak Mayur Patel, the coffee estate owner, alleged that Sudeep’s production house – Kichcha Creations – owes him Rs 1.5 crore for destroying the plantation in the course of a shoot.
In 2016, Kichcha Creations had rented the estate belonging to Deepak Mayur to shoot the television show Vaarasadara. According to Deepak, Kichcha Creations had sought permission from him to shoot the TV series in his estate, to which he had agreed. An initial payment of Rs 50,000 was made, followed by another payment of Rs 1.8 lakh when the shooting was wrapped up last year.
Suresh says that the Vaarasadara team was supposed to shoot only inside Deepak’s house in the coffee estate, and that the agreement did not include the team disrupting the activities of the coffee plantation. However, after the shooting got over, Deepak was left with destroyed coffee plants and several old trees were also destroyed, Suresh alleges. “They also built a separate structure inside the estate to house their workers for the shoot,” he said.
In June 2017, Deepak had approached the then Chikkamagaluru SP Annamalai, and had filed a complaint alleging cheating by the production house and the director of the TV show. The SP had advised Deepak to take up the matter in court as it was a civil dispute. Subsequently, Deepak had petitioned the district court in Chikkamagaluru in that very month.