Madras High Court stalls release of Karthi-starrer Vaa Vaathiyar

The Madras High Court has restrained the release of Karthi starrer Vaa Vaathiyar pursuant to a plea made by the Official Assignee of the High Court accusing the production house Studio Green, helmed by K.E. Gnanavel Raja, of not having settled its dues fully to businessman Arjunlal Sunderdas (since dead) who had been declared as an insolvent and had left behind several liabilities.

A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C. Kumarappan wrote, “There shall be an order of interim prohibition against the respondent not to release the movie Vaa Vaathiyar till December 5, 2025” and directed the High Court Registry to list the present execution petition along with other connected petitions for further hearing of the matter on December 8, 2025.

The High Court had passed a similar prohibition order with respect to actor Suriya starrer Kanguvaa too in November 2024 and allowed the release of that movie only after Mr. Gnanavelraja deposited ₹6.14 crore. The Official Assignee had taken out filed another petition now to prevent the release of Vaa Vaathiyar on December 5, 2025 unless the producer pays ₹21.78 crore.

The dispute was related to a litigation that dates back to 2011 when Mr. Gnanavelraja had entered into an agreement with the businessman Sunderdas for co-producing a movie by investing ₹40 crore each. As per the agreement reached between them, Sunderdas had invested ₹12.85 crore before backing off from the project and deciding not to involve in the production anymore.

Subsequently, in 2014, the High Court declared Sunderdas as an insolvent and directed the Official Assignee to take stock of all his assets and liabilities so that hundreds of people who had deposited money in his real estate and finance companies could be repaid their dues. Accordingly, the Official Assignee took charge and began the process of assessing the financial details of the insolvent.

While conducting an assessment as directed by the court, the Official Assignee found that Mr. Gnanavelraja had to repay ₹10.35 crore to the insolvent, and therefore, filed an application before the High Court in 2016 seeking a direction to him to repay the amount with 18% interest from 2013. The Division Bench allowed the application in 2019 and directed the producer to repay the entire liability of ₹10.35 crore with interest.

Since then, the Official Assignee had been filing petitions after petitions before the High Court, before every release of the film by the production house, but hasn’t been able to recover the dues in full.