Bengaluru: There seems to be no end for the troubles of Sandalwood’s “Maasthi Gudi” producer Sundar P Gowda, as the his petition challenging the Ramanagar Sessions Court’s verdict against him has been quashed by the Karnataka High Court on Monday, November 25.
It can be recalled that, three years ago, on November 6, 2016, during the shooting of the climax scene of the movie at the Tippegondanahalli lake, actors Anil and Uday, who were the antagonists, had to jump from a chopper into the lake. As no safety precautions even though they had reportedly informed the team that they did not know to swim, the duo drowned and died in the water. Their bodies were found after more than 50 hours of search and rescue operations.
Pertaining to this, the police had filed a 450-page chargesheet against the five persons accused in the case- A-1 accused producer Sundar Gowda, A-2 accused director Nagashekhar, A-3 accused the assistant director of the movie, A-4 accused stunt/action director Ravi Varma, A-5 accused being the manager of the movie team and A-6 accused chopper pilot Prakash Biradar.
However, the police did not include actor Duniya Vijay. The police had filed a separate case against the actor, for obstructing the police during the investigation. He had later got relief from the court as there was no evidence to prove the charges.
Earlier, petitions filed by the six accused asking for relief in the case at the III JMFC Court were heard by Judge Siddalinga Prabhu. He gave relief to A-6 accused pilot Prakash as there was no substantial evidence against him. However, the petitions of the rest were rejected. Challenging this, producer and A-1 accused Sundar Gowda had moved the Karnataka High Court., which has now said that the investigation into the five accused was necessary and that it was not possible to give them relief.
