Shilpa Shetty and her billionaire husband Raj Kundra have petitioned the Bombay High Court to overturn a Rs 60-crore cheating case filed against them by the Mumbai police`s economic offences division.
Aside from attempting to have the FIR dismissed, the couple has also asked the court to order the police not to submit a chargesheet in the case and not to take any coercive action against them until their petitions are heard. Their petitions were heard on Monday by a bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekar and Justice Gautam Ankhad.
The court ordered the couple to send a copy of their petitions to the complainant, Deepak Kothari, and set the case for hearing on November 20.
All about the case
Kothari filed a case against the couple, stating that between 2015 and 2023, they enticed him to deposit Rs 60 crore in their company, Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd, but the money was used for their own personal gain. In their submissions, the pair claimed that the FIR was issued based on false and twisted facts, and that it was “maliciously filed with an ulterior and malicious motive to extort money”.
Shetty claimed in her plea that she was not involved in the company`s day-to-day operations and had only been linked with it for a short period. The couple claimed that the entire disagreement was of a civil and contractual character, stemming from a failed business endeavour and investment loss.
“The collapse of the company was due to unforeseen economic circumstances, particularly demonetisation in November 2016, which severely impacted cash-based business,” according to the petitions. The losses were purely business-related and not the result of any fraudulent design or criminal conspiracy, it claimed.
The recent development on the case
Shilpa Shetty, an actor, withdrew her interim application to go overseas in October in a separate plea last month, challenging the Look Out Circular (LOC) imposed against the couple in the case. However, the actor requested permission to file a new petition with the court seeking authorisation to travel abroad in December.
This came after the high court verbally asked the actor why she couldn`t be an approver in the Rs 60-crore cheating case, despite her lawyer`s claim that there were no specific claims against her and no direct connection to the alleged crime or Kundra`s company in issue. Previously, the high court had verbally ordered the couple to deposit Rs 60 crore before pursuing their request to travel to the United States and other countries.