As per reports, FIR has been registered by Khar Police Station, Mumbai against John Abraham and his company pursuant to a complaint filed by Prerna Arora of Kriarj Entertainment.
According to Kriarj, the complaint has been filed for various criminal offenses including cheating, breach of trust, fraud, misappropriation of funds and copyright infringement. They have even accused John and his company of duping them of crores of rupees invested towards the production of the film and alleged that JA Ent had accepted INR 30 crores from it towards the production of the film. The complaint states that as JA Ent failed to deliver the commitments, they terminated the contract illegally, in an attempt to commit fraud.
In a press statement earlier this week, John Abraham had accused Kriarj of defaulting in making payments for Parmanu’s production.
“Our payments have either been delayed or we have received wrong UTR number. Cheque payments have been stopped time and again. Delay in payments and non-payments have caused delays in the post-production work even after the film’s principal shoot was completed on time last year. Despite repeated follow-ups, the distribution plan for the film has not been shared and there has been no transparency in their dealings with third parties,” read the statement. They had even warned KriArj of legal action if they further jeopardised the film’s status or defamed the production house.
In response to the allegations made by John about the delays in payment, Prerna Arora, head of KriArj Entertainment, has been reported to say, “John Abraham pegged the budget of Parmanu at Rs 35 crore which was way too high for a film which had no stars except John Abraham, and even that (John’s stardom) is disputable. Anyway, of that 35 crore we’ve already paid John Rs 30 crore, Rs 3 crore will be paid on delivery. It’s just the remaining Rs 2 crore that we at KriArj have been pleading with Mr Abraham to forgo. But he is not willing to budge. Instead of understanding the economics of this project, he accuses me of not understanding the dynamics and economics of film production. Excuse me, I grew up in an environment of film production. I don’t need anyone questioning my capabilities as a producer.”
Kriarj Entertainment has also published a public notice today iterating that they are the sole and exclusive owners of all rights in the film being joint and equal owners and joint producers of the Film along with JA Entertainment. It further states that the attempts being made by JA Ent and its promoter to defame Kriarjj are nothing but extortionary tactics and will be dealt with in accordance with law. The public notice further cautions third parties from dealing with any rights of the Film through JA Entertainment in contravention of the rights vested with Kriarj Entertainment.
Parmanu was slated for release on April 6 but has now been pushed to May 4, 2018.
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