Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi who has been grabbing the news for his upcoming film 'Lahore 1947', was sentenced to two years imprisonment by Gujarat's Jamnagar court in a cheque bouncing case. He was found guilty under the Negotiable Instruments Act. His lawyer has now issued a statement on the matter. Read on to know.
Rajkumar Santoshi's advocate, Mr. Binesh Patel states that they will appeal against the magisterial court's judgement. He said, "First of all, the court has stayed its judgement for 30 days and granted Mr.Santoshi bail after we sought time to appeal against the judgement at a higher forum''
He added, "The prosecution didn't produce any documentary evidence to prove that Mr. Santoshi had taken money at all. The prosecution itself has admitted that a third party had collected the said money from the complainant. In-return the third party had provided altered eleven cheques of Rs.10 lakh each, which Mr. Santoshi was not aware of it. The magisterial court overlooked these facts and ruled against us. Therefore, on the ground of invalid and false claims, alterations happened in the cheques, the fact that the complainants do not want to present or call-in the said third party who had collected the money, about Mr.Santoshi does not know. So we shall appeal at a higher forum with the above highlighted points and even more."
As per a report in ANI, complainant, Ashok Lal, who is a known industrialist and shipping magnate from Jamnagar, claimed that he received 10 cheques of Rs 10 lakh each from Rajkumar Santoshi, totalling Rs 1 crore, which subsequently bounced. The cheques allegedly bounced after they were deposited. They also claimed that attempted to contact the filmmaker but couldn't.
Piyush Bhojani, who is the advocate for the businessman confirmed Santoshi's sentencing to the news agency on Saturday.
The court ordered a two-year jail term for Rajkumar Santoshi and also asked him to repay double the amount to the businessman.
Since few days, Santoshi has been revealing the cast of 'Lahore 1947' which is being produced under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions. The film stars Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta and Shabana Azmi among others in key roles.
