Mumbai Court rejects bail pleas of Raj Kundra & associate Ryan Thorpe in pornography case
Mumbai's Esplanade Court on Wednesday rejected bail pleas of actor Shilpa Shetty's husband and businessman Raj Kundra along with his associate Ryan Thorpe in the pornography racket case.
Mumbai police had arrested Kundra on July 19 and was to be in police custody till July 27. On Tuesday, the Magistrate further extended the Judicial Custody for 14 days.
The complaint was registered under Sections 354(c), 292, 293, 420, r/w 34 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 66(E), 67 & 67A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Sections 2(g), 3, 4, 6 & 7 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
It is pertinent to note that in the said F.I.R. a Charge Sheet had been filed on 03.04.2021 before the Learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Court at Esplanade.
The Petitioner submitted that, on 19.07.2021 at around 4.00 pm, the Respondent carried out search at the office premises of the Petitioner and pursuant to their search the Respondent requested the Petitioner to accompany to their Byculla, Crime Branch office for recording his statement.
It must be noted that, Businessman Raj Kundra had moved Bombay High Court challenging his “illegal” arrest in the case of creation of pornographic films and publishing them through apps.
Yesterday the Single Bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari while hearing the Senior Advocate Aabad Ponda representing Kundra asked,
“What is so grave urgency that I should hear your matter on production board keeping my regular board aside? Please go before the regular court. It is sitting after 2 days.”
To this, the Senior Advocate had replied, “If that is the case we will wait for regular board to get over and take our chance at the end of the board.”
Senior Advocate Ponda had further appraised that, "Raj kundra has been remanded to judicial custody today and we have preferred a bail application before Magistrate. If high court is not inclined to hear the matter today than it may observe that there will be no impediment before the magistrate to hear the bail application as the high court petition is purely on sec 41A CrPC and illegal remand.”
Bench assured that it will not pass any such order. Instead, could simply adjourn the matter to Thursday.