Mumbai: A court here has sentenced filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma to three months imprisonment in a cheque bounce case and issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him. Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Andheri, Y P Pujari, on Tuesday convicted Varma for the offence punishable under the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act.
The court also directed the filmmaker to pay compensation of Rs 3,72,219 to the complainant within three months from the date of the order. The detailed order was not available yet. Since Varma was not present before the court when the order was passed, it issued a standing non-bailable warrant against him for his arrest for execution of the sentence as per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The complaint of cheque bounce was registered against Varma's firm in 2018 by a company. The court had granted bail to Varma in April 2022 on a cash security of Rs 5,000. "With regard to the news about me and Andheri court, I want to clarify that it is to do with a 7 year old case of Rs 2 lakh 38 thousand amount, relating to my ex-employee.. My advocates are attending," the filmmaker later posted on his X account.
"It is not about settling the rupees 2.38 lakh. The contention was about refusing to be exploited in the attempts to fabricate ..Anyway that's all I can say for now," the post further said. Advocates Rajesh Kumar Patel and Alok Singh, appearing for the complainant's company, submitted an affidavit before the court stating that the firm was engaged in the business of providing hard disks for the last several years.
As per the request of the accused it had provided hard disks between February 2018 and March 2018, based on which various tax invoices amounting to Rs 2,38,220 was raised, the affidavit said. The accused issued a cheque on June 1, 2018 to the complainant, which was dishonoured for insufficient funds, it said.
After this fact was brought to the notice of Varma's form, a second cheque of the same amount was issued, which too was dishonoured due to "payment stopped by drawer", the affidavit said. The complainant was left with no option to avail legal remedy, it added. Varma is best known for films like "Satya", "Rangeela", "Company" and "Sarkar", among others.
