Veteran actor caught talking about bribing jury members!

Once again, the subsidy given by the State to Kannada films has found itself in the middle of a possible scam. Subsidy to 79 films for the year 2013 announced last year is currently under a high court stay. Meanwhile, some members of the jury that selected the films were named in a scam in which they allegedly accepted bribes to nominate films. The scam came to light after a Kannada news channel telecast the video of veteran actor Sundar Raj talking to a filmmaker.The video purportedly shows him saying that despite him paying money on behalf of the film Nakara, the film had not been selected for subsidy. He goes on to say that many other films for which money may have been paid have been selected by the current jury. Sundar Raj is not part of this jury.
The names of jury members Syed Kaleem Ulla, Ranjeet Sarakkai, Ravi Kumar, Sampath and director Prabhakar (Taxi No 1) have been dragged into the alleged scam. Even when the committee was constituted, there were allegations that people with no background in films had been appointed to the jury because of their political connections.
This is not the first time that bribe-for-subsidy has hit the film subsidy process. Almost every year, there has been allegation of this kind. Meanwhile, the government has its hands tied in releasing the subsidy because of the HC stay. After the subsidy to the 79 films was announced, producer Nagappa appro-ached the HC saying many non-meritorious films have been announced as eligible for subsidy while his film Madarangi was not chosen.