Complaint filed against The White Tiger producer Mukul Deora for ‘suspicious transactions’

Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Rajkummar Rao, and Adarsh Gourav starrer The White Tiger made quite the buzz after its Netflix release. The movie hit the OTT platform on January 21 and now producers Sonia Mudbhatkal and John Hart had filed a copyright infringement suit in the Delhi High Court against the film’s producer Mukul Deora, his chartered accountant Sharad Seksaria and Netflix.

According to reports, they claimed to have the adaptation rights to Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel. The producers’ have gone to the Enforcement Directorate and alleged that Mukul has used a cheque which was from a now-defunct Swiss bank, BSI, for “suspicious transactions for the project”.

The report from Mid-Day said, Sonia and John’s email to ED, they lodged a formal request for an investigation into the transactions. The duo has also alleged that the OTT platform was aware of Deora’s “various shell companies.” But Deora confirmed to Mid-Day that there was no wrongdoing.

 

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The report further stated that as per the complaint to the ED, in 2013, Deora used his now-defunct Swiss bank for a transaction where he wired $1.199 million from BSI bank in Hong Kong to his New York law firm Pryor Cashman’s escrow on behalf of Particle Media. The report further said that in a seperate mail that was drafted to Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, the producer duohave claimed that as per the US copyright registration, the movies’ rights have been registered in the name of Hart’s entity, Smuggler LLC.

John told Mid-Day, “What matters is the truth: protecting people from having their life’s work stolen away from them, and equally important, holding content financiers and distributors accountable for following IP. Particularly, when the ownership of the IP has been challenged as it was in this case. Without proper due diligence, no artist is safe from their work being stolen and violated”.

Also Read: The White Tiger Movie Review: Adarsh Gourav-Priyanka Chopra-Rajkummar Rao’s rags-to-riches story is no Slumdog Millionaire