Why moving court after 3 years, HC asks actor Sivakarthikeyan

Chennai: Justice M Sundar of the Madras High Court on Thursday asked actor Sivakarthikeyan why he approached the court after three years for a direction to producer Gnanavelraja to settle a remuneration due that was supposed to be paid in the year 2018-2019.

The judge made this observation on hearing the petition filed by Sivakarthikeyan. The actor prayed for a direction from the court to Tamil film producer KE Gnanavelraja to settle the due amount of Rs 4 crore for having acted in the movie Mr Local produced by the respondent in 2018-2019.

According to Sivakarthikeyan, as per the agreement, Gnanavelraja agreed to pay Rs.15 crore as remuneration for playing the lead role in the movie.

"The producer had not paid only Rs 11 crore and he did not remit the TDS for the paid amount. Therefore, IT issued a notice to me for not paying the TDS," the actor said in his affidavit.

He further submitted that about Rs 91 lakh was deducted from his account in the financial year 2019-2021 and 2020-2021.

Advocate Vijayan Subramaniam, appearing for Gnanavelraja submitted that the actor had already filed a suit challenging the I-T notice and he is again dragging the matter into this petition. On recording submissions, the judge asked why Sivakarthikeyan was filing another petition regarding the IT notice.

It is noted that Gnanavelraja said that he incurred a loss of Rs 20 crore for producing the movie Mr Local. He also informed the court that when distributors wanted compensation for the loss, Sivakarthikeyan requested the producer not to reveal these facts and accepted to waive Rs 4 crore. The judge posted the matter for April 13.