(MENAFN- Live Mint) Susmit Sen , co-founder of the band Indian Ocean , has lodged a Police complaint against former bandmates Rahul RAM and Amit Kilam over unpaid royalties.
The duo has dismissed the complaint as an attempt to coerce them into meeting“illegal and unwarranted demands.”
As reported by PTI, Sen filed the complaint alongside Sunita Chakravarty, the wife of Ashim Chakravarty, with whom Sen initially formed the band in 1990. Ashim Chakravarty passed away in 2009 due to complications from a cardiac arrest, and Sen left Indian Ocean in 2013 to form his own band, Susmit Sen Chronicles.
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Kandisa Music Productions Pvt Ltd, the company managing the Indian Ocean band, is also named as an accused in the police complaint filed by Sen at the Mukherjee Nagar police station in New Delhi on August 16. As of now, an FIR has not been registered in the case.
The charges, made under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), include criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, misappropriation, falsification of accounts, fraud against the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and authorities, among others.
“After forming the band, I was there with them for 23 and a half years... There was so much trust. And when it breaks, it's a very painful procedure. It is quite heartbreaking when your close friends, partners and colleagues behave like this,” Sen told PTI.
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Sen has claimed he has not received any royalties or payments from Indian Ocean since 2020, and Sunita Chakravarty has been unpaid since 2021. The complainants assert they are owed more than ₹50 lakh each, based on calculations from two years ago.
After Sen's complaint became public, Ram and Kilam released a statement on Saturday, expressing surprise at the police case and highlighting that the matter is already under review by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
“We are saddened to learn from the media that a police complaint has been filed against us by Mr Susmit Sen (Former member of Indian Ocean) and Ms Sunita Chakravorty (Spouse of former Indian Ocean member Asheem Chakravorty). We have not seen a copy of the complaint as yet and thus cannot address it on it's merits,” they said.
Sen said Ram and Kilam have not yet contacted him to resolve the matter, PTI reported.
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“There is another case that we filed in NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) in March 2023. At that point of time, the court had also asked them to resolve this matter amicably within themselves. But they did not reach out,” Sen said.
He claimed the band members told them during the COVID-19 pandemic that they were not able to pay the royalties due to lack of work.
“So we asked for a balance sheet, which we rightfully can ask. And when we saw the balance sheet, they had done the business of ₹1.5 crore. And since then, they have done a lot of work. So, now what is the amount, nobody knows. They are not disclosing it,” he alleged.
Ram and Kilam have questioned the timing of the criminal complaint and called it an attempt to pressure them into settling the pending civil dispute.
“There is a pending matter in the NCLT between the share holders for more than a year. That case is still in process, and thus everything therein is sub-judice. It is thus quite a surprise to us that a police complaint has been filed with what appears to be the same issue considered by NCLT.”
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“Filing of a criminal complaint on what is evidently a civil law issue seems to be an afterthought and to arm twist us to agree to their illegal and unwarranted demands,” they said.
The duo further said that they will cooperate fully with the police in“any enquiry they choose to carry out”.
“We are quite aware that the complaints are essentially frivolous and malafide and completely confident about the legality of all procedures carried out by us,” Ram and Kilam said.
Indian Ocean, renowned for its distinctive fusion of rock with Indian classical, folk, and jazz elements, is one of the country's most popular bands.
Their debut album, Indian Ocean, was released in 1993, and they followed it up with Kandisa in 2000.
Sen and Sunita Chakravarty, along with Ram and Kilam, are the four equal shareholders of Kandisa Music Productions Pvt Ltd, which manages the band.
This company was established in 2004 in New Delhi.
(With inputs from PTI)
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