4 min readMumbaiJun 3, 2026 06:08 PM IST
The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) on Wednesday lashed out at Ram Gopal Varma days after the filmmaker slammed the film body for issuing a “non-cooperation directive” against Ranveer Singh. The FWICE maintained that they’ve always catered to the interests of their 5 lakh plus members, and flagged that Varma is yet to pay over Rs 1 crore outstanding dues to workers from a 2018 project.
‘RGV owes over a Rs 1 crore’
“We’re all fans of Ram Gopal Varma, his technique, and his filmmaking. With due respect, he wrote a long tweet jismei humari dhajjiyan udayi (where he insulted us). It’s a democracy, anyone can say wherever they want, but we want to say today that he owes over a Rs 1 crore to technicians and workers since 2017,” said Ashoke Pandit, Chief Advisor to FWICE, while addressing the media.
The outstanding dues to workers are from Varma’s 2018 Telugu action film Officer, headlined by Nagarjuna. “We kept trying to get him to pay the outstanding dues for a couple of years. On June 30, 2019, he wrote us a letter saying, ‘We’re aware we’re accountable to the workers, and we appreciate the federation’s support, but we request them to provide a final deadline of March 4, 2019. Falling to clear all our dues by then, we’re ready to be liable to any kind of sanction by the federation,’” Pandit read out from the letter Varma wrote to him back seven years ago.
“That was 2019. This is 2026. Not a single penny has come to us till this date,” said Pandit, adding, “We take strict objection to Ramu ji’s statement, and he should apologize to us for using abusive language.” FWICE General Secretary even referred to Varma as “begani shaadi mei abdulla deewana” for commenting on the Don 3 row, and assured that the federation would keep taking strict action against defaulters like him.
Also Read | Why Ranveer Singh exited Farhan Akhtar’s Don 3: Script disputes, slashed budget, Dhurandhar
What RGV said?
Last week, Varma took to his X handle to strongly criticize the directive issued against Ranveer by the film body. “BAN ‘FWICE’ and not @RanveerOfficial. The so called “BAN” or non co operation in the style of Gandhiji , will eventually become a BIG FAT JOKE on FWICE,” he wrote.
“This isn’t industry or worker protection, like they are claiming. It is just a pure performative muscle flexing, by an extremely outdated union system, desperately trying to hold on to their grip. Whether it claims to speak for over 5 lakh or 50 lakh workers, the brutal truth is that most of those lakhs don’t even know the internal facts of the two parties dispute,” added Varma.
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“FWICE is neither a court of legal justice nor a government authorised regulatory body , and at best, it’s a kangaroo court, which by definition, pretends to deliver justice, but in actual fact, it disregards established legal rules, due process, and impartiality. That is because the verdict is often decided in advance by a group of a specific agenda oriented people meeting privately, including actors who are scared shitless with the mega success of @RanveerOfficial in Dhurandhar,” wrote the filmmaker, referring to Aditya Dhar’s blockbuster spy franchise Dhurandhar, which has amassed over Rs 3000 crore at the worldwide box office this year.
FWICE revoked its ban on Ranveer Singh
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the FWICE revoked its ban on Ranveer Singh. Maintaining it hasn’t done so under the pressure of a legal notice sent by the actor on Tuesday, the film body claimed it did so on the request of other film bodies and in the larger interest of the film industry. The FWICE also urged all film bodies, along with Ranveer, to sit together and amicably resolve the complaint raised by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment.
The production house filed an official complaint with film bodies against Ranveer for walking out of Farhan’s directorial Don 3 this past December, just three weeks before the commencement of the shooting overseas. Excel Entertainment has demanded Rs 45 crore as damages from Ranveer Singh to compensate for the expenses incurred on the film’s pre-production in the actor’s full knowledge.
