Super 30: Anand Kumar faces allegations of fraud and litigation
Hrithik Roshan
Anand Kumar, renowned mathematician and educationist spoke in an interview about the allegations on him regarding the inflation of the success rate of his non-profit coaching institute in Patna and how he pushed his students to join more expensive centres.
'Super 30', which is set to hit the screens on July 12 stars Hrithik Roshan as Anand Kumar. Directed by Vikas Bahl, the movie also features Mrunal Thakur, Aditya Srivastava and Virendra Saxena. Watch trailer here.
Founded in 2002, Super 30is said to have helped 30 economically backward students each year by providing them free coaching. However, recently, Anand Kumar has faced serious allegations of fraud and litigation.
Four students from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati filed a Public Interest Litigation against Kumar in the Gauhati High Court last year. The petition challenges Kumar's claim that 26 students of his cracked the IIT-JEE entrance exam. However, the petitioners have said that Kumar has not revealed the names of these students since he wants to move enrollments towards his private institution called the Ramanujan School of Mathematics. They have also demanded that the movie be banned.
Anand Kumar has denied these allegations in his PTI interview saying, “There are people who are talking negatively about me. When there was no film being made on my life there was no negativity but now there is,” he told PTI. “I do not take any grant or donation from anyone...I only want to do good work in the field of education.”
This is not the first time that 'Super 30'has found itself in the centre of a controversy. Vikas Bahl, the director, was earlier distanced from the project amidst allegations that he had sexually assaulted a former colleague. In the wake of these allegations, Hrithik Roshan decided to stay away from him. However, Bahl was soon cleared after an internal inquiry held by Reliance Entertainment gave him the clean chit.
In order to make the biopic “as accurate and authentic as possible”, Anand Kumar had personally gone through the screenplay and chose the actors, director and music director himself. Ajay-Atul, the 'Sairat' hitmakers have composed the music for the film.
Kumar has also said that the screenplay had to be re-written 13 times before Hrithik Roshan was approached.
He came to Hrithik's defence when fans criticised his unconvincing Magahi accent and his fake-tan. “I am a middle-class man and in my life most of the time I am sweating, giving lectures and I usually roam from one place to other, so my skin would definitely be tanned,” Kumar told PTI. “Hrithik did work a lot on getting his look and language right. He has got the exact language and [skin] tone.”
The film courted another controversy recently when a clash-of-sorts happened between makers of 'Super 30'and 'Mental Hai Kya'. The release date of 'Super 30' was finally shifted.