Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi gets 2 years jail in cheque return case
asked to pay Rs 2 cr to complainant
Jamnagar, Feb 17: A court in Jamnagar in Gujarat on Saturday sentenced renowned filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi to two years in jail and also directed him to pay Rs 2 crore to the complainant in a cheque return case.
Santoshi, a director, producer and scriptwriter, is well known for action blockbusters like "Ghayal" and "Ghatak", the court drama "Damini" and the iconic comedy film "Andaz Apna Apna".
Senior Civil Judge VJ Gadhvi sentenced Santoshi to two years in jail and asked him to pay Rs 2 crore to the complainant, which is double the amount he had taken from the latter.
The court then allowed Santoshi's appeal for a 30-day stay on the order to allow him to appeal in a higher court.
Ashok Lal, an industrialist, in his complaint, said he had lent Rs 1 crore to Santoshi to produce a film against which the filmmaker gave him 10 cheques of Rs 10 lakh each.
When the 10 cheques returned due to lack of funds in the bank account, Lal issued him a legal notice under provisions of Negotiable Instruments Act and approached court in 2017 after Santoshi failed to return the money.
"Subsequently, the accused applied to transfer the case filed against him to a Mumbai court, which was challenged by the complainant in the sessions court. The sessions court directed that all cases against Santoshi be heard in the Jamnagar," Lal's lawyer Piyush Bhojani said.
The court then issued summons against the filmmaker but he failed to respond to it.
When Santoshi did not appear in the Jamnagar court despite summons, it issued a bailable warrant against him after which he made an appearance, Bhojani said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
