Director Ketan Mehta has reportedly filed a complaint against Kangana Ranaut at Mumbai’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), accusing her of cheating. This comes three weeks after Mehta sent the actress a legal notice, ordering her and producer Kamal Jain to drop the project.
Mehta, in his complaint, claims that Ranaut was on board for his project titled Rani of Jhansi: The Warrior Queen and also shot for it. He further states that the actress replaced him with another director (Krish) and started shooting for a similar movie with a different title. This allegedly caused the filmmaker a loss of Rs 9 crores.
A senior official at the EOW confirmed to Mumbai Mirror that Mehta had indeed filed a complaint, but an FIR can only be filed after a thorough investigation. The official said that a probe is on, and that Ranaut will be summoned so that her version of the story can be recorded later.
“We shared various versions of the script and sketch materials with Kangana. We were shocked when we came to know that she was making the film within someone else and that’s why we also sent her a legal notice. We have been working on this project for 10 years now and it’s a labour of love. They have hijacked our project and that is not acceptable,” said Mehta in the same report.
Ranaut has denied the accusations, with her lawyer Rizwan Siddique stepping in and saying that she hasn’t done anything morally incorrect or illegal.
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Manikarnika had a massive first-look release at Varanasi. Soon, issues with respect to whose film it is started mounting. Last month, after sending out the legal notice, Mehta said that he was in touch with Ranaut since 2015, sharing research material and drafts of the script with her actively participating.
Manikarnika: The Rani of Jhansi is produced by Kamal Jain, on a script written by Vijendra Prasad and Prasoon Joshi, and will be directed by Radha Krishna ‘Krish’ Jagarlamudi. It is scheduled to release in April 2018.
Feature Image: India.com