Mumbai: A case has been registered against director Indra Kumar and producer Ashok Thakeria for allegedly cheating a leading distribution company by claiming to sell the rights to the film Dhamaal.
The FIR has been lodged by Vikas Baldevraj Sahni (53), owner of Andheri West-based leading film distribution company Grand Master, who alleged a fraud of Rs 1.50 crore by Indra Kumar and producer Ashok Thakeria of Maruti International.
The complainant has alleged in his FIR that Maruti International caused huge financial losses to him by committing fraud in the name of selling distribution, digital and copyrights of the film.
The case was registered under sections 318 (4) and 3 (5) of the BNS August 17, 2026 against Ashok Navalkumar Thakeria and Indra Kumar. The police have started an investigation into the matter.
Vikas has claimed that his company, Grand Master had an official agreement with Maruti International October 15, 2019, under which the worldwide distribution, rights and copyrights of the superhit film Dhamaal starring Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, and Riteish Deshmukh were purchased permanently for Rs 1.50 crore. During the deal, the producers had assured the complainant that the rights of the film have not been sold to any other third party.
However, it was later revealed that the accused had sold the lifetime OTT and digital rights of the film to Shemaroo Entertainment Limited in 2015, 4 years prior to the assurance given by the producer.
In January 2020, Ashok from Maruti International went to the office of the exhibitor personally and told them that they already had an agreement with Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, and as per the agreement, all rights had been given to Shemaroo Entertainment Limited for lifetime.
On October 29, 2020, Maruti International made a supplementary agreement with Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, which said that the producer will reserve rights for only 1 satellite channel. On March 20, 2020 Grand Master applied for cinematograph copyright, for which he possesses a chain of title.
On April 28, 2023, the copyright office issued the copyright certificate CF-5230/2023 to Grand Master. The complainant has claimed that he possesses the government copyright and original negative, and has submitted several strong documents to the police claiming his ownership.
Due to this fraud of the accused, the business dealings of the Grand Master with other major digital platforms were cancelled, leading to complainant’s company suffering a loss of crores of rupees.
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