NeW Delhi: The Delhi High Court has quashed a criminal case against actor Suneil Shetty and his production company by a stunt man who has accused the Bollywood star of intimidating him over phone when he called seeking payment for his services.
Justice Mukta Gupta also set aside the proceedings in the case in which the trial court had summoned Shetty with regard to the offence of criminal intimidation.
The high court’s ruling came on Shetty’s appeal against the trial court’s January 15, 2010 order summoning him on the complaint of stunt man Puran Chauhan who had accused the actor of threatening him and not paying him money for his services while shooting for the movie ‘The Little Godfather’ in 2007.
While Chauhan had claimed that Shetty had threatened him during his calls to the actor, the court did not accept the contention.
It said that while the actor may have abused the stunt man, “a perusal of the complete telephonic conversation of the three calls placed on record by Puran Chauhan will reveal that Puran Chauhan was repeatedly making calls to which the petitioner (Shetty) replied that he should not call him and whatever the matter was.
“Of course the language used by the petitioner was abusive but his grievance was with regard to the repeated calls being made to him. The continuous conversation reveals that Puran Chauhan was not alarmed by the words and he continued to engage the petitioner in conversation which he was recording,” the court said in its six-page decision.
It, consequently, quashed the complaint case lodged by Chauhan against Shetty and his company Popcorn Entertainment Pvt Ltd as well as the summons issued to the actor by the trial court.
In his complaint, Chauhan had alleged that the actor along with Harish Shetty, Huzefia Lakadwala and Joy Augustine had approached him at his residence with the proposal and request to assist them in making a film based on the serial bomb blast that occurred in 2006 in Mumbai.
In 2007, he was offered Rs 50 lakh in consideration for the work – for the waiver by the Ministry of Railways for using the railway site and a further sum of Rs 5,000 per day was offered for working as Assistant Director, he had claimed.
He had alleged that while the necessary permission and waiver from the Railways, for using their sites for shooting in the film, were obtained by him, he was not paid any money as promised.
The actor, on the other hand, had claimed that Chauhan was trying to extort money from him and forged some documents to do so.
PTI