Thiruvananthapuram: Actor Mohanlal has sent a legal notice to the Kerala Khadi & Village Industries Board seeking Rs 50 crore as damages. This is in response to a legal notice the Khadi Board had sent earlier to Mohanlal and a private textile firm that had issued an advertisement showing the actor working on a charkha.
According to Khadi Board Vice Chairperson Sobhana George, Mohanlal’s notice says that unless the board issues a public apology or expresses regret and publishes an advertisement in the media in this regard, it should pay him Rs 50 crore. Sobhana disclosed the developments at a news meet.
The issue was sparked off after Mohanlal acted in an advertisement of the private clothes firm. The Khadi Board initiated legal measures pointing out that the product of the private firm had no connection with khadi and that Mohanlal’s involvement would cause loss to the board and profit the private company.
The private firm subsequently withdrew the advertisement. Mohanlal’s legal notice arrived at the Khadi Board’s office months later. In his notice, the actor accuses the board of denigrating his public image.
Sobhana said that the board was planning to tackle the issue legally. “The Khadi Board does not have the financial resources to pay an amount such as Rs 50 crore. Even though the private firm had been sent a formal legal notice by the board, the notice to Mohanlal was in the form of a request,” she said.
“The board had only urged him to disassociate from the advertisement. We received Mohanlal’s notice last month and the matter is being discussed,” she added.
Sobhana George's contention had been that 'charkha' was Khadi's exclusive image. In August last year, George had said that the advertisement of Mohanlal seated before a 'charkha' would give the public the wrong impression that powerloom products too are handmade like khadi ones.
According to her, khadi products are 100 per cent handspun. “Right from dyeing to drying to spinning, the entire process is done using only hands. It is a painstakingly slow process, but done meticulously and with utmost skill. Therefore, it takes a group of women a day to make a handspun saree,” she had said. But 40 such sarees can be churned out in a day by powerlooms.
