Madras HC allows release of Tamil film ‘Thangalan’ after producer complies with court order

Chennai: Madras High Court on Wednesday allowed the theatrical release of Chiyaan Vikram-starrer ‘Thangalaan’ after the film’s producer K.E. Gnanavelraja complied with an order passed by the court to transfer Rs 1 crore to the account of the Official Assignee of the High Court.

The movie will now be released globally on August 15.

Division Bench of Madras High Court comprising Justices G. Jayachandran and C.V. Karthikeyan recorded the submission made by the film producer’s counsel Niranjan Rajagopal that the money had been deposited with the Official Assignee as directed by the court.

The court observed that there shall be no impediment to releasing the movie worldwide on Thursday.

There was an agreement between the producer of the movie, Gnanavelraja and businessman Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead) in 2011 for co-producing a movie by investing Rs 40 crore each.

As per the agreement, the latter invested Rs 12.85 crore but decided to back off midway due to a paucity of funds.

In 2014, the Madras High Court declared the Arjunlal Sundardas insolvent and directed the Official Assignee to take stock of all his assets and liabilities so that hundreds of people who had deposited money in his real estate and finance companies could be repaid their dues.

While conducting an assessment as directed by the court, the Official Assignee found that the producer of the movie, Gnanavelraja had to repay Rs 10.35 crore to the insolvent.

The official assignee filed an application before the High Court in 2016 seeking a direction to the film producer to repay the amount with 18 per cent interest from 2013.

The Division Bench allowed the application in 2019 and directed the producer to repay the amount with interest.

However, since this order was not complied with, the Official Assignee moved the High Court periodically before the release of every other movie produced by Gnanavelraja.

The Official Assignee had filed an execution petition seeking to attach Gnanavelraja’s new movies ‘Thangalaan’ as well as Suriya-starrer ‘Kanguva’ which is due to be released in October.

Passing orders in the execution petition on Monday, the Division Bench had ordered that both the movies could be released only after the producer deposits Rs 1 crore each.

Gnanavelraja subsequently filed a compliance report with respect to ‘Thangalaan’ on Wednesday and obtained permission for its release.