Tezaab director gets 6 months' RI

mumbai: a local court has sentenced film producer-director n chandra to six months imprisonment and asked him to pay fine of rs 2 lakh in a cheque bouncing case. the verdict was delivered last week by additional chief metropolitan magistrate b p kamble who released chandra on bail and gave him 30 days time to file an appeal in a sessions court. chandra is producer-director of the films tezaab, pratighat and style.the judge held chandra guilty of offence under the negotiable instruments act and ruled that if the accused failed to pay the fine, he would have to spend three more months in jail. the case was filed in 1995 by milan jhaveri, proprietor of m j films, who alleged that he had hired chandra's services for directing his film in 1995. a sum of rs 15 lakh was also given as advance to chandra. the project, however, did not take off and was shelved with mutual consent. chandra agreed to return the amount taken as advance by him. he paid rs 2 lakh s by cash and cheque and agreed to pay the balance in instalments. accordingly, he gave three cheques of rs 50,000 each to jhaveri. however, all the cheques bounced. the bank returned them with remarks 'payment stopped' for one cheque and 'insufficient funds' for the other two cheques. the complainant then served a statutory demand notice on chandra asking him to pay the amount due to him or else face litigation. when he failed to reply to the notice, jhaveri filed a case against him.