Telangana High Court on Friday imposed ₹ 10 lakh costs on film writer Nandi Chinni Kumar, dismissing his writ petition seeking to set aside the compromise judgment of a trial court.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili, pronouncing the verdict, observed that the costs should be paid to the Prime Minister COVID-19 Relief Fund within a month. If the writer fails to pay the amount, the Hyderabad District Collector should recover the same as arrear of land revenue from the writer within 30 days, the bench said.
Mr. Kumar entered into two Life Story Rights Agreements with football coach Akhilesh Prakash Paul to enable him to make a picture/biopic with true life events of the latter in years 2017 and 2018. The writer later learnt that some persons produced Hindi film Jhund based on the life of the football coach and planning to release it.
He filed a civil suit in a court of Rangareddy district in 2020. The court gave an injunction order in favour of the writer. The order was affirmed by division bench of the HC and the Supreme Court.
Eventually, Mr. Kumar entered into a settlement agreement with the defendants and received ₹5 crore as relief. This was recorded by the trial court. But a day ahead of the release of the film Jhund, the writer moved the lunch motion in the HC seeking a direction to stall release of the film.
“The petitioner has certainly not approached this court with clean hands...nothing prevented him from informing this court that he filed an application to set aside compromise settlement,” the judgment said. The bench said Mr. Kumar was guilty of suppression of facts.
The bench also remarked that the petitioner’s conduct amounted to jugglery, manipulation, manoeuvring or misrepresentation and suppression of fact.
