Rajpal Yadav’s ancestral home at risk of auction over Rs 16.61 crore dues; brother breaks silence

Actor Rajpal Yadav's ongoing financial difficulties have taken a fresh turn, with the Central Bank of India issuing an attachment notice against his ancestral property in Uttar Pradesh over an unpaid loan of Rs 16.61 crore. The bank has indicated that if the outstanding amount is not cleared within the stipulated window, the mortgaged properties will be put up for online auction on September 9. The development follows closely on the heels of a Delhi High Court ruling that sentenced the actor to three months in prison in a cheque bounce case tied to his 2012 directorial venture, Ata Pata Lapata.

According to reports, quoted by Indian Express, the Central Bank of India has posted an attachment notice at the actor's ancestral residence in Kundra village, located in Shahjahanpur district, citing outstanding dues of Rs 16.61 crore. The notice states that failure to repay within 34 days could result in the attached assets being sold at auction. A second property in Shahjahanpur has also been drawn into the recovery process, with the combined market value of both properties estimated at around Rs 3.19 crore.

Family maintains a resolution in the works

Rajpal Yadav's elder brother, Shripal Yadav, addressed the matter in comments to Dainik Bhaskar, describing it as a long-standing issue that predates the current notice. He said discussions with the bank regarding repayment are ongoing and noted that "the matter will be resolved soon," adding that there is currently no active plan for the properties to go to auction.

Central Bank manager Anuj Verma corroborated, as quoted by Indian Express, that the notice had indeed been placed on the family's ancestral property, explaining that a similar notice was issued roughly two years earlier before the bank and the actor reached a repayment arrangement at the time.

A loan tied to a film

The roots of the dispute trace back to Yadav's directorial debut, Ata Pata Lapata. Per PTI, the actor founded Navrang Godavari Entertainment Limited in 2005, registered under his parents' names, and subsequently secured a Rs 5 crore loan from the Central Bank of India's Bandra Kurla Complex branch in Mumbai to finance the film. The film underperformed at the box office, leaving the loan unpaid, and accumulating interest and additional charges over the years pushed the total owed up to the current figure of Rs 16.61 crore. To secure the original loan, Yadav had mortgaged several properties in Shahjahanpur, with assets belonging to his wife, Radha Yadav, and his mother, Godavari Yadav, also pledged as collateral — a factor now central to the bank's recovery action.

Not the first attempt to recover the debt

This isn't the first time the bank has moved against the actor's assets. In August 2024, when the outstanding balance stood at approximately Rs 11 crore, a team from the bank's Mumbai branch reportedly sealed part of a property near Dak Bungalow in Shahjahanpur. Local residents at the time said the action was carried out abruptly, with some electrical appliances left switched on inside the property. The branch manager overseeing the matter confirmed the property had been mortgaged against the Mumbai-issued loan.

A parallel legal battle over cheque bounce cases

The property attachment coincides with a separate but related legal matter. On July 7, the Delhi High Court sentenced Yadav to three months in prison across seven cheque bounce cases connected to the same underlying loan, ordering him to pay Rs 1.05 crore per case, with nearly Rs 2 crore he had already deposited set to be adjusted against the total.

The case has dragged on for years. A magistrate's court originally convicted both Yadav and his wife in April 2018, sentencing him to six months in jail, a ruling later upheld by the Sessions Court in 2019. In June 2024, the Delhi High Court granted a temporary stay on the sentence, directing the actor to clear roughly Rs 9 crore in outstanding dues. When he failed to meet that deadline, he was ordered to surrender in February 2026, which he did at Tihar Jail on February 5, before being granted interim bail twelve days later.

On the professional side, Yadav was most recently seen in Welcome to the Jungle and is next set to appear in Priyadarshan's Haiwaan, alongside Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan.