John Abraham vs KriArj: Who is the real cheat in 'Parmanu' case?
Court proceedings by Prerna Arora-led production house KriArj against John Abraham over Parmanu are throwing up some interesting revelations about the complainant
Producer Prerna Arora and actor John Abraham are in the midst of a big fight, where each has filed criminal cases against the other on charges of cheating. The case opened at the Bombay High Court on Monday to some rather interesting developments.
A source present at the hearing informs that some surprising revelations came from Kyta Productions, a new company led by ex T-series head of films, Ajay Kapoor.
“It is barely known that Kyta was a co-producer on Parmanu. However, they revealed that they had paid '5.5 crore to KriArj towards production of the film, an information that was suppressed in KriArj’s complaint,” says the source. At the hearing, Kyta also announced that they were cancelling their agreement with the production house.
Meanwhile, Zee, who was also part of the hearing, asserted that they had paid money to KriArj for various rights of the film. “Zee informed the court that they had paid Rs 27 crore for acquiring satellite, digital and IPR in the film and this money was used for production of the film,” says the source, adding, “It is now on record that Kriarj has already pocketed more money than what they claimed to have paid for production of the film.” The matter will now be heard on Wednesday.
Interestingly, KriArj had more to deal with when the shoot of their next production, Batti Gul Meter Chalu starring Shahid Kapoor was stopped after the hotel where the crew was put up decided to seize shoot related equipment following non-payment of dues.
Clearly, a pattern seems to be emerging. In fact, in one of the earlier statements given out by JA Entertainment, they had stated, “The industry knows of Kriarj’s track record. There has been a similar incident in the past with another film where they did the same thing.” Turns out that film is Anushka Sharma’s recently released Pari. A source close to JA Entertain-ment reveals, “Karnesh Sharma, Anushka’s brother and producer of Pari, put his own money to release the film after KriArj just failed to pay up. And now John is afraid that he might have to do the same thing.”
The source adds, “JA Entertainment has been very confident of Parmanu and got rather upset when KriArj kept delaying it. Their hopes were shattered when KriArj randomly announced that Pari and Parmanu would release on the same day. And if Prerna is allowed to have her way, the film might not get a proper release at all.”
KriArj film is already in a war with Abhishek Kapoor regarding the film Kedarnath. KriArj had moved to the High Court to reinforce its rights on Kedarnath after Kapoor claimed lack of transparency in financial dealings. The latest update is that Abhishek Kapoor will be paying off KriArj the money it had invested and produce the film on his own.
