A film release deal that was meant to power Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha has now ignited a far bigger entertainment business storm. Reliance Entertainment Studios Private Limited has been admitted into the corporate insolvency resolution process by the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai, over Pen India’s Rs 11.94 crore claim, turning a release funding dispute tied to the Ajay Devgn and Tabu film into a headline-grabbing corporate flashpoint.
The August 19 order pushes the conversation well beyond one movie’s theatrical journey. At the centre of the matter is a Rs 20 crore amount advanced by Pen India under a November 2022 security deposit agreement, with the tribunal concluding that the commercial substance of the arrangement gave it the character of financial debt.
Nclt Admits Pen India’S Plea
The tribunal bench of judicial member Nilesh Sharma and technical member Sameer Kakar imposed a moratorium under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and appointed Umesh Balaram Sonkar as the interim resolution professional. It also clarified that the final amount payable to Pen India will be determined during the claims collation process.
Reliance had argued that the amount was a security deposit and not a borrowing, and also claimed that repayment was to come through a third party satellite or digital rights provider. The tribunal rejected that position, stating, “The transaction, therefore, possesses all the essential attributes of a borrowing notwithstanding the terminology adopted by the parties.”
The order also relied on Reliance’s later conduct after Friday Filmworks Private Limited, which is partly owned by Reliance, paid Rs 15 crore to Pen India under a subsequent October 2023 agreement. Pen India’s case was that Rs 4.49 crore remained outstanding as principal and Rs 7.44 crore as interest. Referring to Reliance’s later payment proposals in 2024, the tribunal said, “The subsequent conduct of the parties constitutes the best evidence of how they themselves understood and acted upon the Agreement.”
In another important finding, the NCLT rejected Reliance’s submission that Pen India was acting as an unlicensed moneylender. It also held, “Unlike proceedings under Section 9, the existence of a dispute is not by itself a ground to reject an Application under Section 7.”
The Film At The Heart Of The Funding Fight
That legal conclusion is exactly what gives Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha its larger industry significance. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the 2024 romantic thriller brought together Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Jimmy Sheirgill, Shantanu Maheshwari, and Saiee Manjrekar, and was produced by Friday Filmworks, Panorama Studios, and NH Studioz. The film released theatrically on August 2, 2024, after multiple date shifts, adding to the pressure around its eventual rollout.
Its story unfolds as a romance stretched across decades, mixing love, memory, and crime drama in a character-driven narrative. Yet the real afterlife of the project is now playing out in boardrooms and legal filings rather than at the box office. The film recorded India net collections of Rs 12.18 crore, and the insolvency proceedings have made its release strategy, funding structure, and post-release obligations part of a much bigger conversation about how major Hindi films are financed and monetised.
What makes this episode especially striking is that the current legal battle is not rooted in creative differences or distribution friction alone. It has turned a star-led release into a case study of how a film’s off-screen financial design can become as consequential as its on-screen fate, with one tribunal order now reshaping the conversation around the project and the studio behind it.
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