Chennai: An FIR was registered Saturday against cinema director Gautham Vasudev Menon and four other directors of his production company, Photon Kathas Production Private Limited, based on a cheating complaint by a movie producer.
The central crime branch of the city police booked the five persons based on a directive from the Madras high court on January 11.
The court had directed the deputy commissioner, central crime branch to take action, following a petition filed by R. Jayaraman, director, R.S. Infotainment Private Limited, over a dispute regarding sharing profit revenues from the film Ek Deewana Tha, a Hindi remake of the director's box office hit, Vinnaithandi Varuvaya.
Jayaraman stated that his company had entered into a tripartite agreement with Gautham's company and with Fox Star Studios on May 2011 for producing the Hindi remake of the movie.
Photon Kathas and Jayaraman's company were to invest 25 per cent each of the total cost ('11 crore) and the remaining, by Fox Star. Jayaraman's company would get 25 per cent of the profit as per the agreement.
However, Jayaraman claimed that Photon Kathas illegally collected his company's share of the profit and refused to pay him. He approached the Madras high court after the city police initially refused to register a case against the director, despite a direction from a magistrate court.
The CCB has filed cases under four sections of the IPC, including section 420, against Gautham and the other four directors of Photon Kathas, T.S.T. Ramanujam, Venkata Somasundaram, Reshma Ghatala and Sasikaladevi.
