Trouble for Nana Patekar’s ‘Tadka’ continues; Prakash Raj summoned by Bombay High Court

Prakash Raj has been summoned by Bombay High Court regarding a suit related to his movie ‘Tadka’ over issue of Intellectual Property Rights between his bror-in-law's company and Zee Studios. According to reports, court on Monday asked veteran actor-director to be present in court over dispute.   

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Essel Vision Productions Limited, company which owns Zee Studios, moved High Court on January 25 to implement  Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between firm and Sameer Dixit and Prakash Raj’s bror-in-law Jatish Verma, partners of production house Movie Makers. According to terms in agreement, Zee Studios paid Rs 4.25 crore plus taxes to duo for costs towards making film.  

Zee Studios claimed that re were t shown any agreement to show that Prakash Raj, Dixit and Verma are partners. production house claimed that though re were t officially partners, trio was shown as ‘one team’ and considering relation between Raj and his bror-in-law Verma, actor-filmmaker was also credited as a producer on film.     

production house w claims that Prakash Raj "purposely did t execute MoU’ "in collusion and connivance with" Verma and Dixit to ‘calculatedly defeat’ rights of Zee Studios. 

Zee Studios claim that according to terms of MoU, y had agreed upon a 60:40 share in ir favour regarding Intellectual Property Rights while ‘exploitation rights’ were "solely and completely vested" with m. 

company claims that despite  aforementioned terms, Prakash Raj already sold some rights related to film to financing company Akshay Communications Pvt Ltd, which is in possession of rights of negatives. Zee Studios also stated that Dixit and Verma had also sold some of rights to raise funds from company Swiss Entertainment Pvt Ltd. 

Zee Studios requested court to pass an order in ir favour so that all rights related to movie are handed to m.  However, lawyer representing Akshay Communications Pvt Ltd objected as y claimed to have paid Rs 4.5 crore to Prakash Raj. Following arguments, court asked Raj to be present in court this week. judge also added that movie cant be released without court’s permission.

Tadka’, is remake of Malayalam movie ‘Salt N' Pepper’, directed by Prakash Raj. movie reportedly stars Nana Patekar, Taapsee Pannu, Shriya Saran, Ali Fazal, among ors.  

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film has been facing trouble for a long time, facing multiple delays. It was earlier scheduled to release in 2017 but will w hit atres this year.