Madras High Court restrains release of Nandamuri Balakrishna starrer Akhanda 2

The Madras High Court has restrained the release of Nandamuri Balakrishna starrer Akhanda 2 following a dispute over the production house 14 Reels Plus LLP not having discharged a liability of ₹27.70 crore by its group firm 14 Reels Entertainment Private Limited to Eros International Media Limited.

A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C. Kumarappan allowed an original side appeal filed by Eros against a single judge’s October 30, 2025, refusal to grant an interim injunction against the theatrical release of the movie and remanded the matter to the single judge for fresh adjudication.

The Bench ordered that the movie should not be released until the matter gets listed for hearing again before the single judge and said, thereafter, the single judge would have to take a call on continuing the interim injunction until the disposal of an arbitration application filed by Eros.

Senior counsel P.S. Raman, assisted by Vaibhav Venkatesh Rangarajan, representing Eros, brought it to the notice of the Division Bench that his client had initially filed an application before the single judge under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996 and sought for an interim injunction.

It was the case of Eros that a monetary dispute between it and 14 Reels Entertainment Private Limited had ended up in the passing of an arbitral award on July 23, 2019, directing the latter to pay the outstanding principal amount of ₹11.22 crore along with interest at the rate of 14% from the date of liability.

The party that suffered the arbitral award challenged it before the High Court, but its petition was dismissed by a single judge, and the order was confirmed by a Division Bench as well as the Supreme Court in 2021. In 2025, Eros issued a notice to comply with the arbitral award, but there was no response.

In the meantime, Eros alleged that 14 Reels Entertainment Private Limited began functioning through 14 Reels Plus LLP, which was run by the immediate family members of the directors of the former company, to avoid compliance with the arbitral award and began producing Akhanda 2.

The single judge of the High Court had refused to grant an interim injunction against the release of the movie after holding that a Section 9 application could not be entertained as a matter of course when the beneficiary of an arbitral award could always file an execution petition under Section 36 of the 1996 Act.

However, the Division Bench disagreed with the view taken by the single judge and held that Section 9 was a standalone provision which could be invoked by the beneficiary of an arbitral award for obtaining interim relief. The Bench remitted the matter back to the single judge for fresh adjudication of merits.