It’s more than a month now that filmmaker Vikram Bhatt and his wife Shwetambari have been in jail on charges of fraud allegedly amounting to Rs 44.70 crore. The unlikely complainant, who has kept a low profile through the proceedings, is Dr Ajay Murdia – the founder of Indira IVF and Fertility Centre, arguably one of the country’s biggest fertility chains.
As per those close to the doctor, who founded Indira IVF, the 73-year-old was “cheated” by Bhatt in his endeavour to get a film based on his work.
Murdia started Indira IVF in 1988, after resigning from Rabindranath Tagore Medical College where he had been working as a pathologist for a decade. Sources said that those close to Murdia were sceptical of the venture but a big support was his wife Indira, a psychologist. This was why he named his fertility chain, which started from Udaipur, after her.
“His family opposed him leaving a stable government job… a lot of colleagues thought he was crazy. But he built an empire from one clinic to 170 IVF centres all over the country,” a person close to Murdia says.
In 2020, Indira passed away due to cancer; the couple have two sons, both doctors who help run the IVF business. It was then that Murdia conceived of a film to honour his wife and their work in “helping countless childless couples”, says the person.
According to Murdia’s lawyer Manzoor Hussain, Murdia was persuaded by fellow Udaipur resident Dinesh Kataria, who had contacts in the film industry, to go ahead with his plans. Kataria also introduced Murdia to Bhatt, a known Bollywood name with several films behind him such as the hit Raaz, says Hussain. Contacted by The Indian Express, Murdia refused to comment on the case.
The case filed by Murdia accuses Hussain, Bhatt, Shwetambari, Kataria and Bhatt’s manager Mehboob Ansari of conspiring to defraud him.
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Hussain told The Indian Express: “In March 2024, Dr Murdia met Vikram Bhatt and Shwetambari in Mumbai. During this meeting, Vikram suggested that he can make another movie as well, on Bhagwan Shrinathji, whose temple at Nathdwara in Udaipur is renowned. Bhatt convinced Murdia to invest money in both. Murdia said that he had no idea about the film business, so Dinesh Kataria became the mediator. Finally, Rs 15 crore for the biopic and Rs 25 crore for the Lord Shrinath ji movie were decided upon.”
The subjects of the two films proposed by Bhatt were a departure from his usual genre of horror movies.
Bhatt allegedly visited Udaipur later and persuaded Murdia to invest an additional Rs 7 crore to produce two more films, claiming that a studio would be hired to complete all the four projects together. The scripts for the two additional films were not finalised, however.
Hussain says that enthused by the interest shown by Bhatt, Murdia opened a firm called Indira Entertainment in equal partnership with Shwetambari in Udaipur. The deal was that Bhatt would send receipts regarding the expenses, which would be verified by Kataria, and then payments made.
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The lawyer says Bhatt kept sending the bills, Kataria approved them, and Murdia kept paying. “They used to generate fake bills and vouchers. In total, Rs 44.27 crore bills were cleared.”
Finally, two films fructified, the biopic at a cost of Rs 15 crore and another movie with a budget of Rs 3 crore. The biopic with the title Tumko Meri Kasam, released on March 26 last year, had some known names, including Anupam Kher, Esha Deol, Adah Sharma and Adnan Khan. However, says Hussain, no money was spent on film promotion and advertisement, barring a premiere in Udaipur, and the film tanked.
Between it and the second film, the collections were apparently only Rs 65 lakh. Bhatt allegedly kept dodging Murdia’s queries regarding the other two films.
On November 8, 2025, Murdia filed an FIR against Bhatt and the others at Bhupalpura Police Station in Udaipur. All the four accused were arrested from Mumbai on December 7 and brought to Udaipur.
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At the last hearing, on January 5, Justice Sameer Jain of the Rajasthan High Court rejected the petition of the accused for quashing the FIR, holding that the investigation was being conducted fairly.
Bhatt’s lawyer argued that the case was not criminal in nature, and that rather than fraud, the matter was a breach of contract between two parties. He appealed that the dispute be settled in Mumbai, and not in Rajasthan.
The High Court, however, refused to intervene, stating that the case was indeed about “deliberate diversion and misappropriation of funds”, as per a PTI report, and not merely a breach of contract. Police investigation in the case will continue, Justice Jain said.
Bhatt’s lawyer Kamlesh Dave says it was all a case of misunderstanding. “Two movies were made by Vikram Bhatt and the producer was Dr Murdia. Murdia himself says he had no idea about the film business. A director only makes a movie, he has no control over how the public receives it. The plan was that the money earned from the first two movies would be invested in the next ones. But as the films flopped, the other movies could not be made, which agitated Murdia,” Dave says.
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He also contests Bhatt’s allegations regarding fake vendor bills, adding: “Dr Murdia enjoys a lot of influence among the administration in Rajasthan. He has convinced the authorities to arrest Vikram Bhatt and to continue the case in Rajasthan. We have proof to submit our claims which we will submit in court. We are confident our client will be released,” Dave says.
For now, Bhatt, Shwetambari, Kataria and Ansari remain in Udaipur jail.
