Producer and director Puri Jagannadh and actor turned producer Charmee Kaur were questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Hyderabad on Thursday, November 17 about their funds for the film Liger. Liger was a high-budget pan-India movie starring Vijay Devarakonda and Ananya Pandey in the lead roles, with renowned boxer Mike Tyson on board. According to media reports, the interrogation came after a Congressman, Bakka Judson, complained to the ED that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter Kavitha was funding Liger.
According to a Times of India report, the ED has served notices to the director and producer under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The movie that was shot in foreign locations has several foreign actors and technicians on board, and the payments were made in foreign currency to them, the report suggests, adding that all these were taken into consideration. The report further clarified that the interrogation was only related to FEMA and not about Income Tax. The producer and director were questioned by the ED for more than 12 hours, the report states.
Meanwhile, according to a report in The New Indian Express (TNIE), Judson stated in his complaint that politicians were funding Liger in order to convert their black money into white.
Liger, which cost over Rs 100 crore, tanked at the box office, and the director, Puri, earlier said that he would return money to the distributors of Liger, as they have lost more than 80 per cent of their investment on the movie. Some of the distributors had also planned a protest at Puri’s house, however, the director warned that he would not return money to those who protested.
Earlier as well, Puri Jagannadh and Charmee Kaur were questioned by the ED in 2021 in connection with a money laundering probe related to the drugs case that was busted in 2017. They were given a clean chit by the Rangareddy court due to lack of evidence after it was investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by the Excise Department of the state.
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