The Bombay High Court on Saturday rejected the plea filed by actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband and businessman Raj Kundra challenging his arrest and the subsequent orders in the ongoing pornography case, Live Law reported.
Dismissing Kundra’s petition, the court said that “the remand to custody by the metropolitan magistrate is within conformity of law and does not require any interference.”
The Bombay High Court also rejected a similar plea filed by Ryan Thorpe, one of Kundra’s associates who has been arrested in the same case. The duo continue to remain in police custody.
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Kundra’s bail plea was rejected twice earlier on July 23 and July 27 by the magistrate court and he was remanded to custody both times.
Kundra was arrested on July 19 in a case involving pornography that the Mumbai Police had begun investigating in February. He has been accused of making pornographic videos under the pretext of producing short films for OTT platforms. According to the Crime Branch, the pornographic content thus filmed was sent to a UK production company named Kenrin, registered by Kundra’s brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi, and then uploaded on various apps using foreign IP addresses to evade Indian law.
Challenging his arrest, Kundra’s plea said that the police summons to him under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) were given despite admittedly having no intention to arrest him.
Meanwhile, actor Sherlyn Chopra, who had claimed to be the first person to give a statement to the Maharashtra Cyber Cell in March, was summoned by the Property Cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch on Friday for questioning in connection to the case.
According to an ETimes report, she was questioned for nearly eight hours. Speaking to the media later, Chopra said that the police questioned her regarding her agreement with Armsprime, and about the other companies owned by Kundra, terms and conditions of her contract, how many videos she shot with them, and who were all part of the content production team. She was also asked about the kind of relationship she had with Kundra, the actor added.
Armsprime Media Private Limited is owned by Kundra. The Property Cell had earlier summoned the Director of Armsprime, Saurabh Kushwaha, for questioning on Thursday.
Chopra further said, “I told them what happened with me including the dates and time. WhatsApp has a mention of everything, along with dates and timings. I showed them the WhatsApp chats, agreements, copies of the statements which I had submitted to the Maharashtra Cyber Cell. I had lodged a complaint at Juhu police station against Raj Kundra in April 2021; they asked about the reason behind the complaint. I have shared all this information with them.”