The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted protection from arrest to Bollywood actress Poonam Pandey in a porn film racket case in which actress Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra is one of the main accused. A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and BV Nagarathna issued notice to the Maharashtra government on Pandey’s appeal challenging the Bombay High Court order which had rejected his anticipatory bail plea. In its order, the top court said, “Notice issued.. In the meantime, no coercive action will be taken against the petitioner.”
In November last year, the Bombay High Court had refused to grant relief to Pandey. He moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order. Pandey has been made an accused along with actor Sherlyn Chopra in the FIR.
On December 15, the Supreme Court had granted four weeks protection to Kundra from arrest in a case related to a porn film racket.
In November, the Bombay High Court had refused to entertain an anticipatory bail plea filed by Kundra in connection with an FIR lodged against him by the Mumbai Police in the porn film racket case. Kundra approached the apex court after the High Court refused the relief.
Kundra first sought anticipatory bail from the sessions court, which refused to grant him any relief. Thereafter, he moved the Bombay High Court and claimed that he was allegedly implicated.
Last July, Mumbai Police’s cyber cell had registered a case against Raj Kundra under sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, and the Information Technology Act for allegedly distributing explicit sexual videos. He was arrested in July and got bail in September.
Recently, Raj in an official statement denied all involvement in the pornography case and called it a witch hunt.
“Unfortunately I have already been declared “guilty” by the media and my family and I have suffered a lot (consistently) in violation of my human and constitutional rights at various levels. Trolling/negativity and toxic public The notion has been debilitating. I don’t hide my face in shame to set the record straight, but I don’t want my privacy to be intruded with this constant media trail. My priority has always been my family, Nothing else matters at this juncture, I believe that every person has the right to live with dignity and I request the same. To take the time to read this statement and respect my privacy from now on Thank you for that,” Raj claimed in his statement.
(with IANS inputs)
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