Bombay High Court Restores Producer's Appeal Against Actor Sunny Deol In Decade-Old Arbitration Dispute, Imposes ₹15K Costs

The Bombay High Court on Thursday (June 25) while imposing a cost of Rs 15,000 on producer Suneel Darshan, allowed to restore his appeal filed against a judgment delivered way back in 2015 by a single-judge, who dismissed two arbitration petitions filed by the filmmaker and Bollywood Actor Sunny Deol raising claims against each other. 

For context, the two celebrities have indulged in a legal battle for more than a decade now, over Deol walking out of a film titled Good Morning India, which was to be produced by Darshan in 2008.Therefore, the filmmaker had sued the actor demanding Rs 20 crore for his failure to adhere to the agreement.

Their dispute was referred to arbitration and a former Chief Justice of India, who was appointed as the sole arbitrator, in an award, directed Deol to pay Rs 12 lakhs to the filmmaker. But did not consider the filmmaker's claims of Rs 20 crore as he could not prove his losses. 

Both the parties then challenged the arbitral award before a single-judge of the High Court. While Deol challenged the award to the extent of him being asked to pay Rs 12 lakhs, Darshan sought to challenge the findings against his claim of Rs 20 crore. However, the single-judge after considering the contentions, dismissed both the petitions and upheld the arbitral award in April 2015.

Challenging this very order of the single-judge, the parties have filed cross appeals before a division bench of the High Court. On June 9, the division bench of Justice Ajay Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata dismissed Darshan's appeal for want of prosecution as none appeared from his side on multiple occasions. 

However, Darshan filed an interim application through lawyers Zaheer Memon and Shilpi Jain, urging the court to restore his appeal. The advocates informed the judges that they appeal could not be prosecuted earlier because there was some other advocate representing their client and that they came on board only in April this year. The counsels informed the judges that due to some technical issue, they were not aware of the hearing of the appeal on June 9, when it was dismissed for want of prosecution. 

The counsel representing Deol, however, urged the bench not to allow the interim application for restoring the appeal as the cause lists of various dates indicated names of the present counsels against Darshan's name. 

However, the bench considered the contentions and allowed the restoration of the appeal subject to the payment of cost of Rs 15,000 within two weeks. 

Case Title: Suneel Darshan vs Ajay Singh Sunny Deol (IA(L)/20472/2026)