Mumbai, April 7: Veteran filmmaker Subhash Ghai today broke his silence after two successive court verdicts, cancelling allotment of land to his Whistling Woods International film academy, and claimed that he was cheated by the Maharashtra Government.
In a statment issued to the media, Ghai said he felt cheated by the Government of Maharashtra when they were told, after ten years of setting up Whistling Woods International at a cost of Rs 75 crore, that their joint venture agreement since the year 2000 is not valid.
He said the reason given (for the cancellation) was that because of a government error a board resolution was not passed and the land was undervalued. 'What is our fault? They gave the agreement to us signed by the then MD, cultural secretary and minister of culture to have a partnership in Whistling Woods Ltd with share equity and we invested Rs.20 crore to begin with,' Ghai said.
The Supreme Court two days ago dismissed an appeal by Mukta Arts Ltd, owned by Ghai, challenging a Bombay High Court ruling cancelling allotment of 20 acres of prime land in Goregaon east for his film academy, Whistling Woods International.
Observing that the entire transaction 'lacked transparency', the apex court said last Wednesday that the application for allotting the land remained in cold storage under three chief ministers and was revived after Vilasrao Deshmukh became the CM and the land was allotted by him. Last February, the Bombay High Court had quashed allotment of the land for the state-of-the-art world-class film academy, a joint venture between Mukta Arts Ltd and the Maharashtra Films, Stage and Cultural Development Corporation.
Comments
Add new comment