Prerna Arora’s KriArj Entertainment finds itself in tricky waters again as Producer, Vashu Bhagnani reportedly sent legal notices to the makers of films Batti Gul Meter Chalu and Fanney Khan after he found his name as the producer and distributor missing from the credits of the newly released poster of Fanney Khan.
Vashu Bhagnani has issued a public notice claiming his rights over the films. The notice further states that Vashu Bhagnani of Pooja Entertainment and Films has the exploitation of commercial and non-commercial theatrical rights for all India territories of both the films, as also right in perpetuity to 15 per cent overflow and the right that the films would not be released without his prior permission, approval and consent in writing.
Vashu Bhagnani in a statement further claims that he has documents to corroborate his claims and that he had submitted them in the Court when he was fighting the Parmanu case which he also co-produced.
Just two months ago, Abhishek Kapoor had filed a police complaint against Kriarj Entertainment’s Prerna Arora after finding out that Arora had sold Kedarnath’s all-India theatrical rights to Vashu Bhagnani. This update had been covered in detail here.
Confirming that a non-cognizable complaint has been filed against Prernaa Arora, Abhishek Kapoor was reported to say, “It’s shocking to know that there are people in the business who think it’s okay to sell assets that do not belong to them.”
Meanwhile, T-Series maintains its claims of having superior and legally subsisting rights in the films in controversy. Last month, the Delhi High Court had issued an order in favour of Tseries observing that KriArj did not have the right to grant any third party rights or create any lien over the film without taking the written consent of T-Series, who was the co-producer of the film Barti Gul Meter Chalu with KriArj. The Court restrained all the parties from interfering in the exploitation of rights, including but not limited to distribution rights therein by T-series and held that only Tseries had the right to do so as per its co-production agreement with Kriarj.
Clearing the air on the same, Ankit Relan, the lawyer representing T-series clarified that the co-production agreement entered between KriArj and T-series was executed much prior to the agreements under which Pooja films and Vashu Bhagnani are claiming their rights. He concluded by saying that “Given the protection already offered by the court against other similarly placed claimants, I don’t see how Vashu ji’s claims will hold up in court.”
The legal web weaved by KriArj Entertainment by signing multiple agreements containing overlapping rights with different distributors and producers has further entangled itself with this curious case of Fanney Khan. It would be interesting to see how this chapter concludes.
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