No authentic document, says Kamya Punjabi about notice on Pratyusha's film

The fight between the late actor Pratyusha Banerjee’s friend, actor Kamya Punjabi, and her former boyfriend, Rahul Raj Singh, seems to be getting murkier. It all started when Kamya had announced last Monday that she would be screening Pratyusha’s last film, Hum Kuch Keh Naa Sakey, during a prayer meeting held on her first death anniversary, on April 1. The story of the film bears similarities to Pratyusha’s life, and has a character named Rahul. To recap, Pratyusha had committed suicide and Rahul had been arrested for allegedly abetting suicide, but he was released later.

On Thursday, March 30, Rahul filed an injunction petition, alleging that the film defamed him. Following this, the court stayed the release of the film on Friday, March 31. However, Kamya released the film online on Saturday, April 1; she said that she had not received any intimation from the court.

According to latest media reports, the stay order has been extended and Rahul’s lawyers will be sending a contempt of court notice to Kamya on Monday. When HT City spoke to Kamya on Sunday, she said that she had received a document on Friday at 11pm, but she attached little importance to it because she was very doubtful of its authenticity. The document, according to Kamya, was left with her building watchman, it was not in a sealed envelope, and though the letterhead was of an advocate, the document lacked major details like Notice of Motion number and SC Suit number. Kamya sent HT City photos of this document.

She maintains that she is yet to see any authentic document stopping the film’s release or get any official notice of the court stay. “I haven’t received any notice as yet, neither has Neerusha (Neerusha Nikhat , producer of the film). Once we get it, I can also hire a lawyer and reply to the stay order,” says Kamya.

The actor adds, “The day before yesterday (Friday), someone delivered a two-page letter to my watchman at 11pm. The letter was without an envelope and it was on the letterhead of Sneha Singh (Rahul Raj SIngh’s lawyer). I am not from a village that I wouldn’t be able to tell that it‘s not a proper letter.”

Kamya says that she only saw this letter the next day, the day of the prayer meeting. “I was shooting at that time (when the letter was delivered to the watchman) and I came home and went straight upstairs. The next day, I left for a shoot at six in the morning and came back at two in the afternoon as I had to go to Country Club for the prayer meeting. It was then that my watchman gave me this letter, which was without an envelope,” she says.

On the way to Country Club on April 1, she got a call and was told by the management that some people had reached the venue with an official letter to stop the screening. Kamya said that she heard some raised voices in the background when taking this call. Eventually, no screening took place. But since she had not personally received any document, she went ahead and released the film online anyway.

Recalling that episode, she told us, “When they can send [the club] a document, why can’t they send it to me? They didn’t do that, because they knew that we could have objected to it,” she says.

Meanwhile, it was also reported that Kamya had left a notice saying that only the dudhwala (milkman) would be allowed to go up to her flat, which is why the notice could not be delivered to her. Refuting this report, she says, “First of all, I wouldn’t have written a notice in Hindi. And then, how can you prove that it was me who wrote it?”

Reacting to the news of Rahul filing a case of contempt against her, Kamya says, “Baar baar dhamki deta hai Rahul. Agar ek ladki ki jaan chali gayi and nothing happened to Rahul toh Kamya Punjabi ka defamation case mein kya hoga.”