Mumbai: A sessions court has refused to suspend punishment awarded to filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma in a cheque bouncing case and issued a non-bailable warrant against him as he failed to remain present during the court hearing on Tuesday.
Varma was held guilty by the Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Andheri, YP Pujari, on January 21, for cheque bouncing under the provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act. He was sentenced to three months jail and was also directed to pay Rs3,72,219 to the complainant within three months.
Last month, Varma had moved the sessions court, Dindoshi challenging the order of the conviction claiming that the cheque doesn’t bear his signature nor was it issued by him. With the appeal, Varma pleaded for suspension of the sentence and also asked for bail.
However, both his pleas were rejected by the additional sessions judge AA Kulkarni on Tuesday as the filmmaker was not present before the court. Varma has been given the liberty to move the plea again after appearing before the court.
The case has now been adjourned to July 28 for execution of the warrant. The complaint of cheque bouncing was filed by a partnership firm Shree through one of its partners, Mahesh Chandra Mishra, in 2018 through his lawyers Rajesh Kumar Patel and Alok Singh. The firm had provided a hard disk to Varma’s firm in February-March 2018, for which the chques bounced.
