Weeks after actor Nehal Vadoliya publicly accused Subhash Ghai of kissing her without consent, the veteran filmmaker on Wednesday in a statement said his legal team is prepared to take "strict action against any such defamatory attempts".
While Subhash Ghai did not name Nehal Vadoliya in the statement, the director said, "I wish to make it clear that any individual attempting to malign my reputation or that of my companies and team members through false allegations will be held accountable under the law. Our legal team is prepared to take strict action against any such defamatory attempts".
"If anyone has a genuine grievance, the correct and rightful course is to approach the police or the appropriate legal authorities. Resorting to social media to spread unverified claims for publicity is not only misleading to the public but also unlawful," Subhash Ghai, 80, further said in the statement.
Actor Nehal Vadoliya, known for adult web series Gandii Baat and Dunali, in a recent interview with Galatta India accused Subhash Ghai of inappropriate behaviour back in 2021 when she was 26.
In the interview, which was published on the YouTube channel of Galatta India on September 14, Nehal Vadoliya claimed that she had just started dating Subhash Ghai's manager who one day took her to the filmmaker's house.
"He said, 'I'm going to take you to Subhash Ghai's house, maybe he can do something for you'. So, I went to his house... We were drinking. At one point, he (Subhash Ghai) poured some wine for me, and this was after I had already had a couple of glasses..." the actor told Galatta India.
According to Nehal Vadoliya, Subhash Ghai then said her laugh was "beautiful" and that she was "very sexy".
"I later went into a separate room that had a washroom... When I came out, I saw Subhash ji in that room... I thought maybe he also wanted to go to the washroom... There came a point when he was going to bump into me, and I just (shook my head). He was so close to me that all I could see were his big glasses, his muffler, and his (pout).
"I was completely shocked. His eyes were closed. But as I moved aside, his lips touched my cheek. He kissed me. I told my boyfriend that he was about to kiss me on the lips. I told him, 'Why have you brought me here? You are his manager; this means you already knew about all these things,'" she said, adding that she was "so scared".
Asked why she did not report the incident to the police, the actor said she was "too shocked with the trauma" to make sense of anything. "It (going to the police) never came to my mind," she added.
This is not the first time allegations of inappropriate behaviour have been levelled against Subhash Ghai.
During India's #MeToo movement in 2018, actor-model Kate Sharma filed a molestation complaint against the filmmaker, known for films such as Hero, Karma, and Ram Lakhan, at the Versova police station in Mumbai. Kate Sharma had alleged that the filmmaker tried to forcibly kiss and hug her when he called her to his house.
Subhash Ghai, at the time, denied the allegations. "It is sad that it is becoming a fashion to malign anyone known, bringing some stories from the past without any truth or blowing up false allegations if at all. I deny strictly and firmly all false allegations like these," the filmmaker told news agency PTI.
A few days ago, the director shared a cryptic post about people making "right or wrong statements just for publicity" after Nehal Vadoliya's interview went viral on social media.
