MUMBAI: A while back, Manish Harishankar the director and producer of Show Stopper filed a police case against star Digangana Suryavanshi as reported by the famous news portal, alleging cheating and criminal breach of trust under IPC Sections 420 and 406. According to the complaint, she falsely claimed to secure Akshay Kumar and his company to present for the project.
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And now, a source says that Harishankar is reportedly making false accusations against cast members to divert attention from the financial soup of the series that marks Zeenat Aman's return. The source also claims that Suryavanshi's accusations are "absolutely baseless."
“Manish Harishankar is going out and putting false accusations against Show Stopper actors Digangana Suryavanshi, Rakesh Bedi, Ashmit Joshi because he doesn’t want to return money to the financiers as the show has been stuck for two years and Manish Harishankar has not been able to sell the show. This is the first time he’s working after seven years. Actors have all proofs against Manish Harishankar,” reveals the source.
Harishankar’s MH Films issued a defamation notice to actor Rakesh Bedi and Suryavanshi’s fashion designer, Krishan Parmar and they’ve been accused of making false public statements about OTT platforms’ unwillingness to collaborate, which allegedly damaged the project’s reputation. And as per the police report, Harishankar claimed that Suryavanshi also demanded about six crores from the production house stating that this amount has to be paid to Kumar ‘as full final payment towards naming being used in the series as a presenter’.
Reacting to this, the source states, “Forget the 6 crores that Manish Harishankar claims, he has not paid a single penny to Digangana! And he’s making cheating claims. Cheating happens only after a person takes money from another and doesn’t keep the commitment. The deal that Manish Harishankar is trying to project is all wrong.”
The source adds, “Manish Harishankar is the fraud here, who had lent money from people to make the show Show Stopper and has not been able to sell it ever after two years. Now he’s finding ways to bail out and that’s why unnecessarily accusing actors. In fact, Manish Harishankar has not filed Digangana’s TDS money to the government.”
Show Stopper, which was first announced in January 2022, has been involved in several scandals. These range from Harishankar's alleged failure of financial management to the production being stalled owing to significant budget overruns. According to reports, after two years, none of the investors have seen a return on their investment, and many daily wage workers—including stylists and hair and makeup artists have not received their money for over a year.
However, dismissing these reports as "baseless," Harishankar has previously stated, “I just want to state on record that all the speculations and rumours made about the payments are not true. In fact, we have hundred percent cleared the lead actors’ payments and the production’s payments are also clear by 90-95 percent. We have just finished dubbing with all the actors and the post-production is also going on in full swing currently. We will make the date of announcement. We are going to join hands with soon with some good association.”
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Credit: News 18
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