The actor Shilpa Shetty and her businessman husband Raj Kundra have petitioned the Bombay High Court to quash the 60 crore cheating case that has been charged against them by the Mumbai Police Economic Offences wing (EDW). The couple has also asked the court to restrain the police against filing a chargesheet or any coercive move against them before their pleas can be heard to the end.
The petitions were heard on Monday by a division bench that included Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekar and Justice Gautam Ankhad. The bench ordered Shetty and Kundra to send a copy of their petitions to the complainant, Deepak Kothari and set the next hearing date to November 20.
Kothari had made a complaint against the couple of encouraging him to invest 60 crore rupees in their business, the company, the Best Deal TV Pvt. Ltd., between 2015 and 2023. The complaint further indicated that the funds were misappropriated to personal gain instead of being utilized in conducting business as promised.
Shetty and Kundra in their petitions vehemently opposed the charges as false, malicious and with an ulterior motive to extort money. They stated that the complaint was founded on a twisted definition of facts and that the contention was not a criminal matter of concern but rather a civil and contractual one.
Shilpa Shetty argued that she was loosely connected with the company and was not a part of its daily business. The company had gone down because of economic issues, the couple described this as the demonetisation that was done in the year 2016 which they claimed had a drastic impact on cash-based businesses in India.
Their petition also added that they incurred the financial losses as a consequence of the normal risks of doing business but not due to any fraudulent act or criminal intention. The couple stressed that the case was to be handled as a business case and not a criminal offense.
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