The Bombay high court will on Thursday hear the bail petition filed by businessman Raj Kundra, who has been arrested in connection with creation of pornographic films. The court had on Tuesday refused to give any relief to Kundra, husband of actor Shila Shetty, and adjourned the hearing on his bail plea to July 29.
The court has asked the investigating officer to remain present during the hearing in the pornography racket case.
Kundra was arrested on July 19 along with 11 others on charges related to alleged creation of pornographic films. Kundra and his associate Ryan Thorpe are currently under judicial custody. They were sent to the judicial remand for 14 days by a magistrate’s court on Tuesday.
He moved the magistrate’s court for bail, which rejected his petition on Wednesday.
During the hearing on Kundra’s bail plea in the high court on Tuesday, his lawyers Aabad Ponda and Subhash Jadhav argued that the police failed to follow the procedure laid down in law and ought to have first issued a notice under section 41A of the CrPC instead of arresting the businessman directly. Public prosecutor Aruna Kamat Pai refuted the claim and said a notice was indeed issued to Kundra before he was placed under arrest.
The high court then directed Pai to file an affidavit on July 29 in response to the petition.
Kundra also said in his plea that the material which the police claimed to be pornographic did not depict direct or explicit sexual acts. His petition claimed that the short movies appeal to the prurient interest of persons at best.
But the high court refused to grant any relief to Kundra without giving a chance to the prosecution to respond to the petition. “No ex-parte ad-interim relief,” the bench said.
Kundra has been named as the key conspirator in the pornography racket case by the Mumbai Police, which has slapped charges against him under Sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 292, and 293 (related to obscene and indecent advertisements and displays) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides relevant sections of the IT Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
Surjitt Sahani
