Chennai: A court here has sentenced actress-turned-politician Jaya Prada to a six-month jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 for not paying Employee State Insurance (ESI) money to workers of her theatre.
The second metropolitan magistrate court in Egmore held Jaya and her brother Raj Babu guilty of failing to comply with statutory obligations of payment of contributions due to the ESI corporation. The two were partners of Jayaprada Cine Theatre.
ESI had filed a complaint against Jaya and her brother for failing to pay Rs 8,17,794 from November 1991 to September 2002. The case dragged for two decades, and the court has now ordered the accused to pay due amount to the complainant.
ESI stated that the offence of non-payment of contributions under Section 85(a) of the Employees State Insurance Act is punishable under Section 85 (i) (b) of the Act.
Jaya had a fruitful career, spanning more than two decades, in the Hindi and Telugu film industries. She quit acting and took the plunge in politics, joining Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1994.
She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh in 1996, before winning in the 2004 Lok Sabha election from UP’s Rampur on a Samajwadi Party ticket.
In 2019, she joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
