Vikas Bahl, who was accused of sexual misconduct by a former employee of the now-dissolved company Phantom Films, has been acquitted of MeToo charges from the internal complaints committee of Reliance Entertainment. As per a report in a leading daily, an internal inquiry by Reliance Entertainment, the 50 per cent stakeholder in Phantom Films, co-owned by Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Madhu Mantena and Vikas Bahl, has given a clean chit to Vikas. What's more? Vikas will now reportedly get credits as the director of Hrithik Roshan's Super 30 and his name will be in the credits when the film’s trailer is released next week. In fact, PeepingMoon.com had recently learnt from an industry insider, who has seen the first promo of the film, that Bahl has been credited as the director of the film in the credit slide of the promo.
Now Shibashish Sarkar, the Group CEO, Reliance Entertainment, confirmed Vikas' acquittal and told the daily, “Yes, it is true that the internal complaints committee report has exonerated Vikas Bahl. With the committee clearing Vikas, we don’t have a choice but to reinstate his credit as director of Super 30.” The decision came after the complainant did not appear before the internal committee despite repeated reminders. “It (the committee) also recorded documentation and correspondence between the two and based on this, it has unanimously concluded that Vikas Bahl stands exonerated of all charges levelled against him," the daily further quoted a source as saying.
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The report further stated that it was Vikas who wrote to Reliance Entertainment to launch an investigation as the company or Phantom Films never received a formal complaint from the woman. “The woman said the incident took place in 2015—the same year that the Reliance-Phantom merger happened. The company always had an internal complaints committee to deal with such issues but no compliant was registered with it either," the source added.
With the new development coming to light, we wonder what will happen to the defamation suit filed by Vikas against Anurag Kashyap and another partner Vikramaditya Motwane for their statements against him in the issue despite him mentioning that he isn’t guilty of anything he has been accused of. After this, Hrithik made an official announcement on Twitter that he won’t like to be associated with any person, who is accused under MeToo.
Super 30 is inspired by the life of acclaimed Mathematics professor Anand Kumar.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror/PeepingMoon)
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