Actress Digangana Suryavanshi has denied the allegations leveled against her by web show ‘Showstopper’ producer/director Manisha Harishankar. She has now filed a defamation case and a police complaint against Manish Harishankar. Manish had earlier accused Digangana of ‘extortion’ and ‘criminal breach of trust’.

Digangana has filed a police complaint against Manish under sections 509, 406, 420, 499, 500, 503, 506, 63, 199 and 211 of the IPC. She has also sent a defamation notice to Manish.

Speaking about this, Digangana said, “Manish’s story is his twisted imagination, it’s all a lie. (It’s) just a cheap publicity stunt to drag names, clearly he is trying to find a way out Goat So that he can get out of the situation of not being able to sell the show even after more than two years. I don’t want to waste time explaining more, I have already wasted a lot of time trying to help him.”

Digangana’s lawyer Rajendra Mishra also released a statement. It read, “We would like to officially state that all the allegations levelled against our client Digangana are completely baseless and are a result of someone’s criminal intent and attempt to hide their shortcomings. Our client has known Manish for 7 years and is an actress in his series ‘Showstopper’. When Manish was in a situation where he could not help himself, he sought help from our client and proposed a business deal, where his team executed an MOU between him and our client. The strange thing is that Manish Harishankar does not understand that extortion is not legal; it is called business under the terms of the MOU. Our client had engaged a presenter, and honoured her commitment.”

“Our client showed the episodes to the presenter. The presenter did not like the episodes, but then Manish proposed to our client that he would make all the creative changes to the presenter’s satisfaction. Following which our client requested the presenter and after re-editing the show (for which our client spent 4 days in the editing suite) the presenter saw the episodes and agreed to present the show, however there were still a lot of changes needed, Manish promised to fix them after his agreement. Manish was given a rough draft contract as a confirmation of the deal. There were many changes to be made in the draft, which Manish was informed about beforehand.”

“Manish set payment deadlines and missed them thrice! During this time, our client realised that Manish did not have the money to complete the deal. His financier had asked him to provide NOCs or contracts for all other financiers if he needed more funding, but Manish could not provide the same to his financier, due to which no money was released and the deal was cancelled.”

He further added, “Our client (Digangana) has not taken a single penny from Manish for the hosting deal. She claimed that our client travelled only with her editor, which again is a lie. Our client travelled with her mother and Manish’s editor. The episodes were watched in the presence of our client, her mother, the host and the host’s team. Any claims beyond this are only intended to damage our client’s reputation.”

“The iPad that Manish claims to have with our client, he knew very well that it was not with our client. In fact our client got the iPad back from the team, and he messaged Manish to pick it up. Manish has not picked it up yet, we wonder why there is so much drama. He claims that our client did not establish any contact with the presenter – this is a lie because the presenter’s team visited Manish’s office, his editor met the presenter. When Manish could not arrange the money required to make the deal happen, he suddenly asked to meet the presenter and our client realised that he was only making false claims and it would be embarrassing to present him knowing that the deal was falling through.”

“Manish has misrepresented our client, tarnished his reputation, made false claims in the media, leaked a business deal proposal, signed a false MOU with a commitment of having money when he did not have any, cheated by not returning/cancelling the MOU he had, not paid our client’s actors’ fees when he falsely claims he has, in fact not paid our client’s employees, defamed our client, leaked the client’s home address, willingly lured him into a situation and much more. Unlike Manish, we have proof of all the transparent communication. Manish is clearly guilty and he just has the guts to spread false information.”

Manish Harishankar’s production house MH Films had earlier filed a police complaint against Digangana under Section 420 and Section 406 of the IPC. They had also complained against Rakesh Bedi. However, Bedi and Harishankar settled the matter between themselves and the actor said that they have a good relationship.