New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS): The court of Special Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow on Wednesday issued summons to Netflix India Director Abhishek Nag, documentary director Nick Read, and Netflix Producer Reva Sharma, directing their appearance before it on November 15 in the matter of a criminal complaint filed by Sahara, for making and publishing an "outrageous and highly defamatory" documentary/trailer titled "Bad Boy Billionaires".
The accused will be tried under section 500, 501, and 502 of Indian Penal Code.
Before issuing the process, the court took cognisance of the offences committed by the accused persons and recorded statements of complainant and their witnesses and after being satisfied with the evidence, proceeded further to issue summons for trial of the accused persons, for the offences allegedly committed by the accused.
Netflix, an OTT platform, made and telecast a documentary series - titled as "Bad Boy Billionaires" in October 2020, on the life and growth of Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy Sahara along with Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi.
Saharas have also filed a civil suit for recovery of damages against Netflix India and their directors, producers etc., for an amount of Rs 500 crore for the time being, in the competent court at Alipore, Kolkata. The court has already issued summons to the accused/ defendants for their appearance and submitting defendants' reply/evidence.
Earlier Sahara has strongly reacted on the Netflix series "Bad Boy Billionaires" and said it is completely baseless which is way beyond the facts. "Just to gain commercial benefits, Netflix have created an ill-conceived, spiced up commercial film full of sensationalism with the title 'Bad Boy Billionaires' at the cost of the image of Sahara Group which is unacceptable and highly objectionable," it said.
Sahara said: "A bare look of the documentary indicates that in their lust of making the documentary spicier and rhetoric, all the accused have wilfully connived and attempted to portray the Chairman of Sahara Group in bad taste, without their being any credible material evidence against him."