HC imposes Rs 5 lakh fine on Lyca Productions

This application for decree on admission is not only devoid of merits, but also the affidavit filed by another person in support of Lyca, is also a misrepresentation of statement on record.

Hence, this application is dismissed with a cost of Rs 5 lakh payable to the respondent/defendant Vishal, Justice G Jayachandran said.

The judge was dismissing an application arising out of a civil suit from Lyca Productions for recovery of Rs 30.05 crore alleged to be due from Vishal under a loan agreement dated September 21, 2019.

The case of the plaintiff Lyca was that the defendant Vishal Krishna Reddy had availed a loan of Rs. 21.29 crore for one Anbu Chezhian of Gopuram Films for the production of the Tamil feature film ‘Marudu’, in 2016.

As Vishal could not repay the loan to Gopuram Films, he had approached Lyca for the takeover of the loan. Accordingly, the loan agreement was entered between Lyca and Vishal in 2019, wherein he agreed to pay the former the principal of Rs 21.29 crore with an interest of 30 per cent per annum as per the terms of the agreement.

After going through the records and hearing the arguments of the parties, the judge found that the application was filed by Lyca by “cherry picking” certain sentences in the counter affidavit of Vishal.

“After reading the counters of Vishal this Court finds no unequivocal admission of liability, that too for the entire suit claim,” the judge said.

Certain statements of Vishal in the common counter affidavit were made with a rider that the due payable is subject to the proof of discharge of his loan towards Gopuram Films, subject to reconciliation of accounts and subject to the release of his movie Thupparivalan-II so on and so forth. It does not fall within the scope of unequivocal admission of the entire suit claim, the judge said and dismissed the application with the cost.