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Tuesday February 25, 2025

Salman, Rahat win $2.2m defamation, extortion case in California court

By Murtaza Ali Shah
November 02, 2023
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (L) and his former international promoter and art agent Salman Ahmed. — Provided by the author
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (L) and his former international promoter and art agent Salman Ahmed. — Provided by the author

LONDON/CALIFORNIA: The Supreme Court of California has ruled in favour of Rahat Fateh Ali’s former international promoter and arts agent Salman Ahmed against a California-based show promoter in a lawsuit of £2.2 million alleging defamation, economic duress and extortion.

California Superior Court judge Carrie A. Zepeda has ruled that Salman Ahmed had acted honestly in his dealings with the show promoter and plaintiff Bikramjeet Singh whose Bollywood Events LLC through Karl Kalra’s Jeevan Sathi LLC had entered into a contract for a show on October 5 in 2019 at St Jose featuring global sensation Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

According to the court documents available with The News and Geo, Bikramjeet Singh and his company “Bollywood” claimed that they had been victims of alleged extortion, economic duress, common counts, unfair business practices and severe defamation by Salman Ahmed and Rahat who allegedly extorted $30,000 from him.

The case went on trial before the Superior Court of California, Country of Santa Carla, where Salman Ahmed represented himself and Rahat while Singh appeared through his legal team. For the previous hearings, Salman Ahmed spent over $50,000 on lawyers but then decided to represent the case himself.

Singh and Karl Kalra had agreed to promote a Rahat concert in San Jose, California, for a price of $250,000 for the concert with Salman Ahmed but Singh admitted that before the concert he had only paid $150,000 to Kalra. The court heard that Salman Ahmed had sold the show to Sathi who had further sold it to Singh.

Bikramjeet Singh claimed before the court that Salman Ahmed had agreed to reduce the price for Khan’s performance to $150,000 so that Singh was only obligated to pay Kalra $150,000. On the evening of the concert, $100,000 was outstanding on the contract between Singh and Sathi. The show started two hours late and Rahat appeared on the stage only after $30,000 of the $100,000 was given to Salman Ahmed on Kalra’s behalf. When the concert started two hours late, Salman Ahmed told the crowd that the concert was starting late because the promoter had not paid the full amount to the artist on time, the court heard.

Bikramjeet Singh told the court that he was not obligated to pay $30,000 or the additional $100,000 because Ahmed agreed to reduce Khan’s concert fee and so $30,000 were extorted from him and his reputation was damaged.

Salman Ahmed denied the allegations and argued that he did not have the ability to modify the contract between Singh and Sathi.

The judge ruled that Singh had never entered into a contract with Salman or Rahat; Singh was bound by the agreement to pay the full amount and Salman didn’t have the ability to modify the contract; it was Singh who breached the contract when he failed to pay $250,000 to Kalra before the concert was scheduled to begin and on the day of the concert, Singh owed $100,000 to Kalra.