Well known Tamil film production house, Lyca Productions has filed a complaint with the Chennai Commissioner of Police, accusing the director of Ayngaran International Films Pvt Ltd, K Karunamoorthy, of fraud, and looting them of crores of rupees. Karunamoorthy has been a consultant with Lyca since 2013. Lyca has also named Karunamoorthy’s close aide Banu in the complaint.
Lyca was started as Gnanam Productions Private Limited in 2007, and later renamed in October 2017. According to the complaint to the Commissioner, the brought Karunamoorthy on board in 2013 as a consultant because they believed he could help them with the business. Karunamoorthy was soon handling most of the decision making for Lyca by himself, they said in their complaint. And in the process, he allegedly sold international rights to films produced by Lyca, through his own company Ayngaran – without proper agreements. Lyca has accused Karunamoorthy of making several crores from these deals, while giving a tiny percentage of the profits to Lyca.
Karunamoorthy allegedly used his influence in Lyca to sell Lyca’s films to his own company, Ayngaran, without proper agreements, and then sold the international rights through Ayngaran for a huge profit.
“We submit that even on a conservative estimate, the loss to the company in the sale of overseas theatrical and satellite rights would not be less than Rs 100 crore. We further submit that only a thorough probe and Investigation into the financial deals of M/s Ayngaran International Films Pvt Ltd. during the last couple of years would reveal the ill-gotten wealth of K Karunamoorthy and Banu,” the complaint said.
They have also accused Karunamoorthy – who is a Sri Lankan Tamilian with British citizenship, according to the letter – of taking business decisions on behalf of Lyca that has hurt them financially. Specifically, they have accused him of signing on two films without Lyca’s consent: Simbu’s 2018 film Vandha Raajavathan Varuven, and Kamal’s upcoming Indian 2.
In their complaint, Lyca said that they were kept in the dark about all these deals.
On Saturday, Ayngaran issued a press release denying the allegations made by Lyca. In the statement, Karunamoorthy has claimed that he was needed by Lyca to set up and run a profitable business in Tamil Nadu. He also claimed that he did not have the authority to sign any cheques on behalf of Lyca and that all financial transactions had to go through Subaskaran or other members of Lyca. Pointing out that Subaskaran attended the puja of Indian 2, he has said that the shoot of the film is currently in progress and asked if Lyca is unaware of this.
Claiming that he was called for a meeting by Lyca where they tried to foist all their losses upon him, Karunamoorthy says that's why he decided to disassociate himself from the company. He's further said that Subaskaran's intent was to defame him and Ayngaran and that as a law-abiding citizen, he will meet the challenge legally.
In August this year popular subtitlist Rekhs accused Lyca of not paying her for the work she did in their 2018 film 2.0. After remaining silent on the issue for quite a while, Lyca put out a statement a few weeks after Rekhs posted the issue on Twitter. Finally, towards the end of that month the matter was resolved amicably after Lyca paid Rekhs for her work that was done nearly two years ago.