Vashu Bhagnani filed a complaint last year on July 27 that Prerna Arora’s company KriArj Entertainment (P) ltd had cheated Bhagnani of Rs 31.6 crore by selling the distribution rights of the film “Kedarnath” to multiple companies and thus charged under Sections 420(Cheating) and 120 B (Criminal Conspiracy) of IPC.
On the basis of the complaint an FIR was filed and later on December 7, 2018, Ms. Prerna Arora was arrested. She is being held in Byculla women’s jail but her mother Pratima and Arjun N Kapoor (a Director at KriArj Entertainment) are yet to be arrested.
According to the charge sheet filed by Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police, Ms. Arora, her mother Pratima and Arjun N Kapoor signed a deal with Gothic Entertainment Pvt Ltd for distribution rights of the films “Kedarnath” to Padma Ispat Pvt Ltd and Bhagnani’s Puja Films respectively.
A contract was signed on January 17, 2018 stating that KriArj would pay Rs 20 crore to Puja Films by April 15 and if it failed to do so Puja Films would be paid from the revenue of KriArj next film. Sony Films was also made a party to the contract. But Ms Arora defaulted on the payment and told Mr. Bhagnani that they would eventually pay him Rs 25 crore. Subsequently, Mr. Bhagnani learned that Gothic Entertainment had also claimed a share in the profits of ‘Padman’.
It is alleged that she concealed the information of dealings from all three companies and pocketed huge amounts of money. The investigation further revealed that Mr. Bhagnani had been asked to pay Rs 10 crore for the production and distribution of ‘Padman’ in January in lieu of first claim on the revenue and similar offer was made to him for the movie ‘Kedarnath’.
It is also alleged that Prerna and her mother sought Rs 9 crore from Mr. Bhagnani to purchase a house in Pali Hill.
Surprisingly, this is not the first case against Ms. Arora. EOW is investigating two more criminal cases against her and a fourth case is being investigated by Delhi Police.
Courtesy/By: Sonali Tiwari
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07 Feb 2019
