A Hyderabad court on Tuesday sentenced veteran Telugu film actor-producer and former Rajya Sabha member Manchu Mohan Babu to imprisonment for one year in a case dating back to 2010. A cheque the actor had issued for Rs 40.75 lakhs had bounced. The sentence comes a week after the actor joined the YSR Congress party.

Justice V Raghunath Rao, who awarded the one-year jail term to Mohan Babu, also ordered that he should pay the default amount of Rs 40.75 lakhs along with interest to director Y V S Chowdary immediately. The court also found his production house Sri Lakshmi Prasanna Pictures guilty and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000.

The court, however, granted bail to Mohan Babu, following a petition moved by his lawyers. The judge gave him three months’ time to clear the dues.

According to Chowdary’s counsel K Satya Sai Baba, Mohan Babu had signed an agreement with the director for payment of Rs 1.55 crore for directing the film “Saleem” to be made under the Sri Lakshmi Prasanna Pictures banner.

“He had paid Rs 1.10 crore in different installments. On December 9, before the release of the film, he issued a cheque for Rs 40.75 lakhs of Andhra Bank, Jubilee Hills’ branch after deducting the tax. However, with the film not doing well in theatres, Mohan Babu issued a stop payment instruction to the bank,” he said.

Mohan Babu later clarified that he had paid the full amount to Chowdary for the film Saleem and had given a cheque for Rs 40.75 lakhs towards advance payment for another film. “Since Saleem did not do well at the box office, we dropped the idea of making another film. We asked Chowdary not to deposit the cheque in the bank, but he had already done so and when it bounced he started blaming us,” he alleged.

Mohan Babu, who had been the Rajya Sabha member of the Telugu Desam Party between 1995 and 2001, stayed away from politics for nearly 18 years before joining the YSR Congress party last week.

First Published: Apr 02, 2019 20:21 IST