Durga Jasraj accused of non-payment of over R3 lakh, files police complaint in defence

Durga Jasraj, whose company Art and Artistes runs the popular show 'Idea Jalsa', has landed in a soup over non-payment of dues for an editing job last year.

Mridu Khosla of Zcyphher Studios said Durga and her team had approached her last April to make a show reel. `The work was completed in a month and after Durga approved it, the master tapes were delivered. We waited for a few months for the payment but Durga's team cut off all contact with us,` said Mridu, adding that the total outstanding amount was Rs 3.19 lakh. A copy of the invoice sent to Durga's company around June last year is in hitlist's possession.

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Khosla alleged that after Durga did not respond, she sent her a text message saying, `Thank you for ignoring my demand notice. At this time, I will have to approach the court and I will let the media know about it.`

Durga, on her part, has registered a complaint with Versova police, accusing Mridu of threatening her. `We are trying to make the payment but Mridu is being unprofessional. Have you ever seen me talking about such stupid things to the media?` she retorted. Neeraj Jaitly, director of Art and Artistes, said Zcyphher Studios had promised to complete the editing work in eight days against a payment of Rs 80,000. `We got the final edit after more than a month. Two months later, we got an invoice of Rs 3.19 lakh. Our approval was not taken for any cost escalation,` he said.

He said despite the delay in delivery, they agreed to pay Rs 1.5 lakh because the agency had reworked quite a bit. `But they turned hostile and threatened to defame our company and Durga using the media. That is why we sought police intervention.` he added.

Khosla says, `Never have I been called to a police station and that too, because of someone who owes me money. The videos that we worked on are available online for everyone to see.`