- By Piyali Bhadra
- Wed, 02 Aug 2023 03:40 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Late Bollywood art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai was found dead on Wednesday at his art studio in Maharashtra's Raigad district. As officials confirmed the death of the art director by suicide, reports of him being in a financial crisis surfaced on the internet. Nitin Desai had defaulted on a Rs 252 crore loan to its financial creditor and a bankruptcy court admitted an insolvency petition against him last week.
Nitin Desai's company ND's Art World Pvt Ltd borrowed Rs 185 crore from ECL Finance in 2016 and 2018. However, troubles with repayments started in January 2020, with the debts increasing every day.
According to a report in the Hindustan Times, his close friend and BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde opened up about his crippled financial matter and said, "I used to often speak and counsel him. I had told him how Amitabh Bachchan had faced immense losses and came back to life again. We had told him that even if the studio was attached due to loans, he could start afresh. It's very sad to hear about his death. I spoke to him the day before."
Desai's company is engaged in the business of maintaining and organising replicas of historical monuments and providing facilities and services to theme restaurants, hotels, recreation centres, and shopping malls.
On July 25, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted to filing a petition by Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company to start a corporate insolvency resolution process in this matter.
The order was then passed by NCLT's Member HV Subba Rao and Anu Jagmohan Singh after hearing both sides of the case. Jitender Kothari was appointed as the interim resolution professional in the case.
The order stated that on March 32, 2021 the account was classified as a non-performing asset by the creditors with the total default amount of Rs 252.48 crore on June 30, 2022.
Before passing the order, Nitin Desai's company had said that there was a fire incident at the studio in 2021 which resulted in loss of property. He blamed the creditors for sending a recovery notice on the same day. Thus, the financial creditors approached the district authorities in Raigad to take possession of the studio a few months ago.
Nitin Desai was a big name in Bollywood and has worked in several big-budget Bollywood films including ‘'Parineeta', 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam', 'Lagaan', and others.
