On Friday, August 11, 2023, Jaya Prada, a veteran film star in both South Indian and Bollywood cinema and a former Member of Parliament, was sentenced to six months of imprisonment by the Egmore Metropolitan Magistrate Court. This verdict was announced in relation to accusations of her failure to make payments towards the Employees State Insurance (ESI) funds for the employees working at a cinema theatre owned by her in Chennai city. The court’s decision followed a formal complaint filed by the theatre workers, asserting that Jaya Prada had disregarded her financial obligations towards the ESI for her employees.
Having remained connected to the cinema hall for a span of ten years, despite its closure during that duration, these workers brought to light the issue that while their earnings were subject to ESI deductions, these deducted funds were not being transferred to the state insurance corporation as required. Confronted with the withholding of their entitled benefits, they chose to seek recourse through legal channels. After this, the Labour Government Insurance Corporation filed a case against Jaya Prada and her business partners Ram Kumar and Raja Babu in the Egmore Magistrate Court in Chennai.
In this case, renowned actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada has received a six-month prison term from a Chennai court, accompanied by a Rs 5,000 fine. Furthermore, her business associates Ram Kumar and Raja Babu were also convicted in the case.
Jaya Prada, along with the group of three employees responsible for theatre management, had jointly filed a plea with the Madras High Court, appealing for intervention to suspend the proceedings in the Egmore court. However, the High Court rejected all three of these petitions, marking a setback for their legal efforts.
During the subsequent session convened at the Egmore court, Jaya Prada presented a proposition to resolve the outstanding dues owed to the workers. Nonetheless, the legal counsel representing the Employees State Insurance (ESI) voiced opposition to this proposition, leading the presiding judge to render a verdict of a six-month imprisonment term for the actress.
Notably, a few years earlier, Jaya Prada and her associates held ownership of a Chennai-based cinema hall. But later, substantial financial losses forced them to halt its functioning. In a subsequent development, the cinema’s former employees initiated legal action against the proprietors, alleging non-reimbursement of the deducted ESI funds from their earnings.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Jaya Prada prominently featured in Hindi and South Indian cinema, emerging as a leading actress of her generation. She notably collaborated with Jeetendra and Amitabh Bachchan, delivering memorable performances in movies like “Tohfa,” “Maa,” “Sharabi,” “Sargam,” “Aaj Ka Arjun,” “Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani,” “Sanjog,” “Maqsad,” and “Ganga Jamuna.”
Jaya Prada joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019. Earlier she joined the Telugu Desham Party in 1994 and was nominated as a Rajya Sabha member by the party. Later she went on to win the Lok Sabha elections of 2004 and 2009 from Uttar Pradesh on a Samajwadi Party ticket. In 2019, she joined the BJP.
