The Supreme Court of India has granted regular bail to filmmaker Vikram Bhatt and his wife Shwetambari Bhatt in an alleged multi-crore fraud case related to a film deal. The case relates to a financial dispute over a proposed biopic of IVF entrepreneur Ajay Murdia’s late wife. The couple was arrested by Rajasthan Police in December and lodged in Jodhpur Central Jail. Earlier, the Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Shwetambari Bhatt. The latest order cancels an earlier decision of the Rajasthan High Court which had refused to grant bail to the couple.
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A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi observed that the case appears to primarily relate to a commercial transaction. Although the FIR contained allegations of fraud, the Court said that the dispute could be better resolved through arbitration rather than lengthy legal proceedings. The court directed both the parties to approach the Supreme Court Mediation Center to explore the possibility of an amicable resolution of the financial dispute. The court granted bail with the expectation that sincere efforts would be made to resolve the dispute peacefully.
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According to the complaint, Ajay Murdia alleged that Vikram Bhatt and his wife had persuaded him to invest more than Rs 30 crore in the film project, and promised huge profits which never materialized. However, the defense argued that the agreement covered multiple films and work on some of them had already progressed.