Clear intention to tarnish my image: Kannada actress Pooja Gandhi calls Rs 3.5 lakh hotel bill a 'misscommunication'

The security manager of a Bengaluru hotel filed a case against Kannada actress Pooja Gandhi and her politician friend Anil P Menasinakai for allegedly not paying hotel bills due to the tune of Rs 3.35 lakh. The hotel manager claims that both of them stayed in the hotel between April 2016 and March 2017. The total bill was Rs 26,22,344, including taxes. They paid Rs 22,83,129 from April 2016 to December 2018.

The security manager then alleged that Pooja and her friend had fled the hotel without paying the bill. When the hotel staff approached them, neither of them gave a clarity about the clearance of bills. The staff, according to a report on Deccan Herald, decided to wait for Gandhi to respond after they assumed that she would be busy filming movies. However when the hotel staff called her up, she outrightly denied all claims saying she had nothing to do with her friend or the crew who stayed at the hotel.

When the hotel staff contacted Menasinakai, he first assured them that the payment would be made but later declared the cheque would bounce since he did not have that much cash, claimed the report. Another report on The New Indian Express claims that the security manager approached High Grounds police for a non-cognizable report (NCR) case on March 11. An FIR was not filed since it is a non-cognizable case. "Menasinakai duped the hotel by issuing cheques without sufficient balance in his account, which itself amounts to cheating, and goes a long way in proving their guilt. So the duo had planned to cheat our hotel,” Muthanna reportedly said in his complaint.

Deccan Herald reports that before the High Grounds Police could take anybody's statement, Mensinkai’s associates rushed to the hotel on Tuesday and settled the dues. They also went on to report that Gandhi then called the complaint "bogus". Pooja Gandhi even went on to tell The New Indian Express that it was a 'clear intention to tarnish her image'. "I stayed at the hotel for a while during the pre-production of JD Chakravarthy’s movie, and paid the service bill through my credit card. When I came to know about the false case, I contacted Bhaskar, general manager of the hotel, and he agreed that there was miscommunication over the development. I know Menasinakai as he is a politician but I am nowhere connected with paying the bill of the hotel. It is a clear intention to tarnish my image," she reportedly said.