MS Dhoni moves Supreme Court against Amrapali group

Former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has approached the Supreme Court seeking possession of penthouse in an Amrapali project. In its plea, the Chennai Super Kings captain also informed the top court that he was cheated by the real estate company as it engaged him as the brand ambassador for promoting its project but did not clear his outstanding - the amount promised for its brand promotion.

He was engaged as the brand ambassador for the promotion of projects of the group after he had booked the penthouse in Amrapali Safari in Ranchi.

Earlier on March, Dhoni had approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Amrapali Group to pay him Rs. 40 crore due towards his services to the real estate company as a brand ambassador.

It should be noted that Dhoni had signed an agreement to promote the Amrapali group in 2009. In that year, the cricketer was appointed as the ‘brand ambassador’ of the realty major, who has seen numerous litigations filed against it by homebuyers alleging fraud.

Dhoni parted ways with the Amrapali group sometime in 2016. His wife Sakshi Dhoni was also involved in various ‘charity operation’ of the group, a TOI report said. The decision came after an intense Twitter campaign by the homebuyers of social media demanded him to disassociate himself from such a ‘fraud’ group.

"Dhoni is no longer our brand ambassador... I do not want his image to be affected because of being attached to Amrapali," company Chairman and Managing Director Anil Sharma had said at that time. He, however, had maintained that, “this decision was taken mutually by Dhoni and us.”

The complaints from the residents of Amrapalis Saphhire project in Noida had gone viral on Twitter over the past few days after they tagged Dhoni in their tweets asking the cricketer to disassociate himself from the builder or force the company to ensure completion of pending work.

Last year, sport management company Rhiti Sports, which manages Dhoni, KL Rahul and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar had moved the Delhi High Court and filed a recovery suit against Amrapali against dues of Rs 150 crore, the Economic Times had said. “They haven’t given us money for branding and marketing activities,” Arun Pandey, managing director of Rhiti Sports had said.