Top Tamil director Shankar has been facing a tough time. All his recent films ended up as debacles or cost failures and his work was badly criticized like never before. The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has attached three properties of Shankar which are worth Rs 10.11 crores under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. The action was taken after a legal battle about the plagiarism row for Rajinikanth starrer Robo. The investigation was done based on the complaint that was filed by writer Aarur Tamilnadan before the 13th Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore, in Chennai city, on May 19, 2011.

Aarur Tamilnadan claimed that Robo was inspired from his story ‘Jiguba’. Shankar has received a sum of Rs 11.5 crores for Robo for working on the script, development and direction. There are a lot of similarities for Robo and Jiguba as per the investigation done by Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). “Based on substantial evidence and records in hand, it has been determined that S Shankar has violated Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957—a violation now classified as a scheduled offence under the PMLA, 2002,” told ED in a statement. The ED has attached some valuable properties registered in Shankar’s name. Shankar will have an opportunity to contest the order before the authority under the PMLA.