Madras High Court Orders Attachment Of Part Of Late Actor Sivagi Ganesan's Property In Execution Petition Against Grandson

Justice Abdul Quddhose passed the order after noting that the mediation talks between the petitioner company – Dhanabakkiam Enterprises- and the respondents – the production company, Dushyanth, his wife Abirami, and his father Ram Kumar had failed.

The court noted that the respondents had not filed a counter till date, and the arbitral award that was sought to be enforced had also attained finality. Thus, the court was inclined to allow the petitioner company's prayer to attach the property.

“The learned counsel appearing for the Judgment Debtors has also not raised any serious dispute about the ownership of the said property by the Judgment Debtors. For the foregoing reasons, necessarily, the property, morefully described in the schedule to the execution petition has to be attached,” the court said.

Though the court had previously asked the parties to appear before the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre for mediation, the mediation talks ended in vain. The counsel for Dushyanth and others had informed the court that they were ready for a one-time settlement of Rs. 2.75 Crores, but the petitioner argued that the arbitral award was for a sum of Rs. 9,02,40,000, and hence, they were not willing to accept the offer.

The financial dispute between the parties arose from a contract that was entered into for producing the movie titled “Jagajaala Killadi” in December 2017. Eshan Productions had approached the petitioner company for financing the movie, and as per the agreement, Dhanabakkiam agreed to disburse a sum of Rs. 4,00,00,000 as a loan to Eshan Productions.

Dhanabakkiam had argued that as per the terms of the agreement, Eshan Productions had consented to repay the loan amount within 6 months from the date of agreement or 7 days before the release of the film, whichever is earlier. However, even after the movie's production was completed, the production company deliberately delayed the release of the film, and all the cheques issued by the company towards repayment was dishonoured.

Following this, a Memorandum of Understanding was entered into between the parties for repayment but Eshan Productions deliberately defaulted to adhere to its commitment as per the MoU. Thus, Dhanabakkiam had approached the Madras High Court for appointing an Arbitrator to adjudicate the disputes, and the court had appointed Justice T Ravindran (retired judge) to adjudicate the issues between the parties.

Case Title: M/s. Dhanabakkiam Enterprises v. Eshan Productions and Others

Case No: EP 68/2024