Director Ali Abbas Zafar and team have been booked for defrauding producer Vashu Bhagnani in a ₹154 crore fraud case

Mumbai: Bandra Police has registered an FIR against director Ali Abbas Zafar, production head Himanshu Mehra and accountant Akesh Ranadive for alleged fraud and forgery. The FIR was registered on December 8 following the direction of Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate Court.

Producer Vashu Bhagnani, 63, alleged that Zafar and his team defrauded him during the production and distribution of the film Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan. In 2021, Bhagnani's company, BMCM Films, signed Akshay Kumar and Tiger Shroff for the project, which had a production budget of Rs 125 crore. Zafar was paid Rs 3.50 crore upfront, and the agreements were formalized in February 2022.

Bhagnani claimed that Zafar and Mehra spent excessively on luxury accommodation, ignored pre-arranged setups and inflated the production cost by Rs 154 crore. He also alleged misuse of BMCM funds for another project, Bloody Daddy, and personal expenses. Bhagnani says that despite filing the complaint earlier, no action was taken, after which he had to approach the court.

The FIR has been registered under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) . ), 471 (using a forged document as genuine), 500 (defamation), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (common intention).