Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi has been sentenced to two years in jail and fined Rs 2 crore by a Jamnagar court in Gujarat for a cheque bounce case on Saturday, as per a report by India Today.
In continuation of the report, Senior Civil Judge VJ Gadhvi pronounced the two-year jail sentence and mandated Santoshi to pay double the borrowed amount to the complainant, Ashok Lal, an industrialist.
The Jamnagar court granted Santoshi's appeal for a 30-day reprieve, allowing him time to contest the verdict in a higher court, the report added.
The case was filed after a Rs 1 crore loan Lal provided to Santoshi for film production, led to the issuance of 10 cheques, each valued at Rs 10 lakh. When the cheques bounced due to insufficient funds, Lal sent a legal notice under the Negotiable Instruments Act. In 2017, Lal approached the court after Santoshi failed to repay the borrowed amount.
News agency, PTI reported Lal's lawyer, Piyush Bhojani, as saying, "Subsequently, the accused applied to transfer the case filed against him to a Mumbai court, which was challenged by the complainant in the sessions court. The sessions court directed that all cases against Santoshi be heard in Jamnagar."
Bhojani also added, as per the report that when Santoshi did not appear in the Jamnagar court despite summons, it issued a bailable warrant against him after which he made an appearance.
The filmmaker is known for films like Ghayal and Ghatak, the court drama Damini and the iconic comedy film Andaz Apna Apna.
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