Madras High Court Refuses To Halt Release Of "Idhayam Murali" Movie On Filmmaker Sudha Kongara's Plea

The Madras High Court on Friday (July 10) refused to halt the release of upcoming Tamil movie "Idhayam Murali" on a plea filed by filmmaker Sudha Kongara over unpaid remuneration of Rs. 8.39 crores for her work in connection with the Tamil movie “Parasakthi”.

Justice K Kumaresh Babu also refused to reserve all records of revenue generated from the movie "Parasakthi" on the director's plea. The court has instead referred the matter for arbitration and appointed Justice R Subramanian (retd) as the Arbitrator.

Sudha has moved the court against Dawn Pictures seeking payment of Rs 8.39 crore along with an interest of 12% from February 8, 2026. The amount has been claimed as a measure for securing a claim amount till the passing of an arbitral award.

Sudha has also sought for an interim direction to restrain Dawn Pictures from releasing the Paraskathi movie through any OTT platforms, media service, satellite channel, digital/streaming platform, cable network, or any other media, electronic or otherwise till the disposal of the main plea.

Sudha has also sought for appointing a court receiver or commissioner to collect, receive and hold in escrow all revenue that it payable by Zee5 to Dawn Pictures for obtaining the OTT rights of the movie. She has also sought a direction to Zee5 to directly deposit the revenue with the court receiver, instead of paying it to Dawn Pictures.

A direction has also been sought to maintain and preserve all records of revenue generated from the movie through all sources and file such statement before the court along with all OTT/satellite/digital agreements (executed and pending) entered into or being negotiated by Dawn Pictures in connection with the movie.

Apart from this, Sudha has asked the court to restrain Dawn Pictures, its agents and nominees from releasing the upcoming movie “Idhayam Murali”, which is scheduled to release on July 10. 

When the matter had come up for hearing previously, Sudha submitted that though the film claimed to have collected more than Rs 100 crore, the producers had still not paid the remaining dues, citing financial difficulties. It was submitted that while her remuneration remained unpaid, the respondent production company was now proceeding to release the “Idhayam Murali” movie. Sudha thus sought to restrain the release of the upcoming movie, pending payment.

On the other hand, the production company submitted that Sudha had already received remuneration from 2D Entertainment, with which she had first entered into an agreement to make the movie, with Actor Suriya as the hero. It was submitted that Sudha had received the amount as full and final settlement for her work, including story, screenplay dialogues and direction, but this fact was not informed to Dawn Pictures. The company thus claimed that it did not owe any more amount to Kongara.

Case Title: Sudha Kongara and another v Dawn Pictures

Case No: Arb Appln 1279 of 2026