High Court reserves order on petition filed by 'Maastigudi' crew

The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday reserved its order with regard to a petition filed by the crew of the Kannada movie ‘Maastigudi’, who had sought quashing of lower court proceedings against them.

The unit members have been accused of causing the death of two actors — Anil and Uday — who drowned in the Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) reservoir during the shooting of the movie in November 2016.

Sundar P Gowda, producer; R Nagashekhar, director; Maradappa, assistant director; K Ravikumar, stunt director and S Bharath Rao, assistant director, have moved the court seeking directions to quash the chargesheet and the lower court proceedings against them.

The petitioners have contended that though precautionary measures were taken, the actors, after jumping from the helicopter, drowned in the lake due to high amount of silt accumulated in the lake. The police have charged the unit members of intentional killing. The prosecutors, on the other hand, said that though the actors had confessed that they did not know to swim before the media, the actors performed the stunt and the film unit had failed to take any protective measures to safeguard the actors’ lives.

Justice Aravind Kumar reserved his orders in the matter.