The Madras high court has restrained M/s White Screen productions from releasing Tamil film “Aruva Sanda”.

Justice C.V. Karthikeyan granted the interim injunction till March 16, on an application arising out of a suit filed by State Bank of India, Velachery branch, which sought to restrain White Screen productions represented by V. Raja and 10 others from releasing the movie until the outstanding amounts are paid to the bank.

According to the bank, V. Raja and 12 of his relatives had independently submitted applications through D. Chitra, who was an auto loan counsellor for purchasing new luxury cars including Audi. Based on the documents, the bank had sanctioned loans ranging from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 54.71 lakh, totally amounting to Rs 2.79 crore.

The loan papers were submitted through an auto loan counsellor, D Chitra, who handed over the relevant documents including the KYC (know your customer) of the applicants to the lender.

According to the bank, Chitra gained confidence of the branch officials and got acquainted with the loan sanction and disbursement norms. She submitted misleading facts and dubious documents to the authorities.

Through fraudulent methods, she accessed the operating system of the computers by hacking the user ID and password of the officials.

Bank further stated she fraudulently diverted the loan amount directly to the borrowers instead of crediting it to the account of the car dealers. Also, she fraudulently diverted the loan amount directly to the borrowers instead of crediting it to the account of the car dealers.

Subsequently, the loan proceeds were misused for film production by the borrowers and no cars were purchased by the people who procured loans through her.

During a routine check, SBI's branch manager at Velachery in the city found abnormalities in the loans recommended by Chitra and on verification noticed irregularities in such loan accounts and reported the matter to higher authorities for further probe.

On investigation, bank alleged it was Chitra had hacked the URL of Loan Originating Software.

Though the high court directed the police to register a case against all the 13 borrowers, including the producer and actor of the film, the police did not act and hence, the bank filed a civil suit, the bank submitted in its plea.

In its suit, the bank had sought an injunction to restrain the producers who are all the debtors from releasing the movie.