Madras HC dismisses plea seeking to restrain Shankar from directing other films

The Madras High Court on Friday rejected the plea filed by Lyca Productions seeking to restrain director S Shankar from working on other movies before completing Indian 2 starring Kamal Haasan. Justice N Sathish Kumar also rejected Lyca Productions’ plea seeking to direct filmmaker Shankar to provide Rs 170. 23 crore as security if he wanted to direct two movies at the same time. 

The court observed that Lyca Productions had not made out a case to grant an injunction, reported The Hindu. The judge, however, said that the production house could file a civil suit seeking damages over delay in completing the film.   

Lyca Productions had brought to the notice of the court earlier that the Indian 2 project was initially budgeted at Rs 150 crore.They noted that the production banner has currently spent up to Rs 236 crore so far. However, Lyca Productions pointed out that only 80% of the work related to the film has been completed so far. Responding to the production house’s allegation, director Shankar said that he had initially requested the production house to budget the film at Rs 273 crore, but upon Lyca Productions’ request, the estimate was brought down to Rs 250 crore. 

On Friday, director Shankar promised to complete production of the film by October this year. The production of Indian 2 was delayed due to a slew of hurdles. Initially, Lyca Productions had , on April 1 filed a petition in the Madras High Court, seeking that director Shankar be restrained from working on other projects until completion of Indian 2. The court, after rejecting the interim injunction, once again heard the case on April 22. The bench had directed both the parties to settle the issue amicably. However, both the parties failed to do so and brought to the notice of the court that talks have been unsuccessful. On June 16, the case was adjourned to a later date.  

Kamal Haasan will be playing the lead role in Indian 2 co-starring actors Kajal Aggarwal, Siddharth, Rakul Preet Singh, Priya Bhavani Shankar, and several others. Anirudh Ravichander has been roped in as the music composer. It is the sequel of director Shankar’s hit 1996 Tamil film Indian.