The Bombay High Court, on Tuesday, rejected the pre-arrest bail plea filed by actor and producer Gehana Vasisth in relation to the ongoing Raj Kundra pornographic films case, Bar and Bench reported.
While hearing the anticipatory bail application moved by Vasisth in the third FIR filed against her in the case on August 26, the High Court had asked the Mumbai Police to justify why she should be arrested once again in the ongoing pornographic case when she had already been in custody for over four months in connection with the same case.
The FIR was filed by the police based on a complaint stating that Vasisth, who was allegedly the director of porn films, threatened, coerced and lured women to act in obscene videos. The complainant claimed that she was coerced to act in such videos by Vasisth, which were then uploaded on the mobile application NueFlix.
During the earlier hearing, the actor’s lawyer pointed out that while Vasisth was in jail during the early stages of the investigation, a second FIR was filed against her. And following her release, a third FIR was filed pertaining to the same case seeking her custody once again. He also added that the police had already seized all the material pertaining to the case.
The public prosecutor argued on Tuesday that custodial interrogation of Vasisth is essential to unearth the pornography racket. The prosecution further submitted that it needs to investigate which other OTT platforms/apps Vasisth has sold the content in question to, aside from Nueflix. It also submitted that “the allegations on the face of it, constitute the offence of trafficking of person.”
After hearing the arguments, Justice Sandeep K Shinde rejected the pre-arrest bail petition stating that it was not a fit case for such a plea.
Recommended
Raj Kundra, who is actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband, has been accused as a “key conspirator” in the case and is currently in jail. He is accused of creating of pornographic videos under the pretext of producing short films for OTT platforms and distributing these videos on various apps.
Since Kundra’s arrest on July 19, Vasisth has been constantly voicing her support for the businessman through her Instagram page and has been claiming that the videos are not porn but ‘erotica’.
Vasisth was also earlier summoned by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch for questioning in August.