#MeToo: Vikas Bahl shoots off legal notice to Anurag Kashyap, Motwane; accuses professional jealousy at play

NEW DELHI: Days after Phantom Films being dissolved, director Vikas Bahl has sent legal notices to former partners Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, accusing them of defaming him, amid the sexual harassment allegations.

Denying all allegations, the 'Queen' director has accused them of being "opportunists" who wanted to defame, malign and destroy Bahl's career out of "professional jealousy".

"It is by design that after having remained silent about the alleged incident and alleged victim for three years, you have now come forward and supported the alleged victim. It is imperative to highlight that the alleged victim herself has mentioned that your sudden moral enlightenment is nothing but a hoax and there is a personal agenda behind it," the notice issued through Advocate Shamsher Garud of Jayakar and Partners, read.


The 47-year-old director has also asked for an "unconditional apology" and urged Kashyap and Motwane to withdraw the "contradictory" statements made by them on social media. Over the weekend, Kashyap had put out a statement in which he had said that that he had 'named and shamed' Bahl in the film circles for behaving inappropriately with a Phantom Films employee during a trip to Goa in 2015. He also wrote that while the woman had tried reaching out to him to speak about the incident, the film industry is singularly 'ill-equipped to handle matters such as sexual harassment'. Motwane, on the other hand, called out 'sexual offender' Bahl for preying on a young woman, abusing her trust and ruining her life.

Actress Kangana Ranaut also backed the woman's claims and gave her own account of how Bahl had misbehaved with her on the film sets of 'Queen'.



The 'Queen' director, in the legal notice, has also accused the directors of using the allegations as an opportunity to dissolve Phantom Film, and shift the blame to him. He said that discussion about the dissolution of Phantom Films had been under way for the past few months due to creative and professional differences.

"You have falsely portrayed to the media that the reason for parting ways is supposedly the alleged incident of May 2015 which is in fact false and has been done in bad taste and contradictory to your tweet dated October 6, 2018 where you have stated that the dissolution happened amicably," the notice read.



Bahl's lawyers have also accused Kashyap of bribing another employee at Phantom Films to come up with similar allegations against Bahl.

"This makes us wonder whether the alleged incident of sexual assault also has any authenticity, given that the alleged victim was, in fact, working as your own employee,” the notice said.

The legal notice also mentions that Motwane is said to have initially believed there was no sexual harassment and showed his conversation with the alleged victim to Bahl.


"This was to show that no sexual harassment incident had taken place. Yet, Motwane, after the victim outed him went ahead and issued statements against Bahl," the notice reads.

Meanwhile, the 46-year-old Kashyap took to Twitter to step down from his duties as a board member of Mumbai Academy of Moving Image, popularly known as MAMI, in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against his Bahl.