Madras High Court. File
| Photo Credit: K. Pichumani
The Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) has filed a civil suit in the Madras High Court, accusing Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI) of having caused huge monetary losses by creating hurdles in the ongoing production of movies by members of the council.
Justice K. Kumaresh Babu on Tuesday (April 29, 2025) ordered notice, returnable by May 7, to FEFSI and 23 associations affiliated to it, seeking their response to the plea for grant of an interim injunction restraining them from adhering to an alleged illegal call for non-cooperation.
Advocate Krishna Ravindran, representing TFPC, told the court that the plaintiff council was registered in 1979 under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act of 1975 and that it was a premier body established for the welfare of Tamil film producers.
Similarly, FEFSI was a trade union registered under Trade Unions Act of 1926 and it comprises 23 different associations of film directors, cinematographers, writers, editors, make-up artists, lightmen, and so on involved in the pre-production, production, and post-production of movies.
The TFPC and FEFSI regularly sign Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with respect to fixation of wages and other issues related to the workers. The last of such MoU was signed by both the parties on March 10, 2022, and it was still in subsistence.
However, in the recent past, FEFSI had begun to work with another body titled Tamil Film Active Producers Association (TFAPA) and issued a communication to all its 23 affiliated associations on April 2, 2025, asking them not to cooperate with the members of TFPC and stop all film production work for them, Mr. Ravindran said.
In the communication, FEFSI had also accused TFPC of promoting a rival trade union named Tamil Nadu Thiraipada Thozhilalargal Sammelanam and warned that the latter could affect the livelihood of 25,000 film workers. Therefore, it had requested the workers not to work for TFPC members.
Denying that TFPC had anything to do with the new trade union, Mr. Ravindran told the court that it had been started by some technicians who had a grouse with FEFSI. He also accused FEFSI of using the new trade union as an excuse to hold the members of TFPC to ransom by stopping their production work since April 8, 2025.
He urged the court to declare FEFSI’s April 2, 2025, communication as null and void and issue a consequent direction to FEFSI, as well as its 23 affiliated associations, to adhere to the terms of the 2022 MoU. He also sought an interim injunction restraining the film employees from adhering to the “illegal” call for non-cooperation with TFPC members.
Published – April 29, 2025 05:53 pm IST