Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi has been sentenced to two years in jail and fined Rupees two crore by a local court in Gujarat’s Jamnagar over bounced cheques. The court has granted the filmmaker a 30-day stay to appeal the order. The incident revolves around a 2015 transaction where one Ashok Lal, the owner of Shreeji Shipping, provided Santoshi with one crore rupees to produce a film.

Reportedly Santoshi issued ten cheques of ten lakh rupees each to Lal as repayment for the loan. However, these cheques bounced subsequently. Despite Lal’s attempts to reach out to Santoshi, as reported in media, the filmmaker remained unavailable, leading Lal to file a case in court under the Negotiable Instruments Act.

Initially summoned by the court, Santoshi failed to appear for the hearings. Consequently, the court has now sentenced him to two years in jail and directed him to compensate Lal with two crore rupees instead of the initial one crore.

Rajkumar Santoshi’s film ‘Lahore: 1947’, featuring Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta and produced by Aamir Khan, has garnered attention amid this legal turmoil. A news channel reportedly had sought a response from Santoshi regarding the matter, but as of now, no response has been received from him.