Rajkumar Santoshi finds himself in a yet another soup as his comeback film hit a roadblock, and the producer is now dragged to court. A report in Mumbai Mirror suggests that Rajkumar Santoshi has been charged under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 after a cheque of Rs 17,50,000 bounced. An arrest warrant was issued against the filmmaker on January 17, however, on March 4 the Rajkot magistrate court granted him bail for a surety of Rs 25,000 in the cheque bounce case.
The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, KD Parmar, had warned the filmmaker to “remain present in person or through his advocate henceforth, failing which, surety will be forfeited”
In 2013, Dhanraj and Anil Jethani claim that Rajkumar Santoshi met them and discussed a film with a budget of approximately Rs 1.50 crore. The project, however, didn't fall in place and over the next year, the Jethanis claim, Santoshi presented them with multiple cheques, one amounting to Rs 17,50,000. But all of the cheques presented to them bounced. Talking to Mumbai Mirror, Anil Jethani said, "I sent him several legal notices which he did not respond to and after a while even stopped answering my calls as well. A magistrate court in Mumbai issued a warrant against Santoshi in 2015. He was to appear in court but failed to do so. I was then asked to transfer the case back to Rajkot where the initial transactions had taken place."
Rajkumar Santoshi, however, Santoshi failed to turn up for hearings in 2016 and appeared only after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him on January 17. When Mirror contacted Rajkumar Santoshi, the filmmaker said, "Anil Jethani comes to Mumbai to party, picking up young starlets for his films. He is sleazy and what he is claiming is untrue. My lawyers are replying to him with a legal notice and we are going to challenge him in court. He will be the one paying for this,” he ranted saying the Jethanis are trying to get publicity using his name. “The matter is subjudiced, so why is Jethani talking to the media? He has no credentials and agreements with me and only wants to tarnish my reputation. I have refused to attend his functions and parties in the past. Why would I ever associate with such people?"
