Surveen Chawla, brother booked for ₹40-L‘fraud’

HOSHIARPUR: A case has been registered against Bollywood actor Surveen Chawla, her husband Akshay Thakker and brother Manwinder Singh here for allegedly defrauding a local investor of ₹40 lakh. A resident of Phagwara road, Satpal Gupta, has complained to police the actor and her kin had duped him of ₹40 lakh.

Satpal told mediapersons here on Friday in the presence of his lawyer Naveen Jairth that his son Pankaj Gupta had come in contact with Suveen Chawla and Akshay Thakker (whom she later married) in 2014 through her Chandigarh-based brother Manwinder and they persuaded him to invest in the making of Hindi movie, ‘Nil Battey Sannata’, through production company JAR Pictures, Mumbai.

“They wanted us to invest ₹1 crore saying more the investment, more the profit. However, we gave them ₹51 lakh. They promised to return the money in six months, but till date they have not returned even a penny,” said Gupta. He claimed that they deposited the money in the bank accounts of Surveen and JAR Pictures through cheques between June 16 and 23, 2014. But one cheque for ₹11 lakh had bounced due to a technical mistake and only ₹40 lakh was transferred to their accounts.

“Surveen met my son on a number of occasions and kept promising to pay ₹70 lakh within six months of the release of the movie, but later her declined to make the payment,”said Gupta.

Gupta further said.“the movie was released in 2016, but we were not given any share of the revenue. The family stopped taking our calls and did not respond to our emails also,” added Gupta. SSP J Elanchazhian said an FIR had been registered. He said the accused party would be issued a notice under Section 41-A of the CRPC, directing them to appear before the police.

Neither Surveen nor her brother Manwinder could be contacted despite phone calls.