The Bombay High Court on Monday reserved its order on a plea filed by Raj Kundra challenging his arrest and seeking immediate release from Arthur Road Jail in the pornographic racket case.
A single Bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari was hearing a petition filed by Mr. Kundra, businessman and husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, and his business aide Ryan Thorpe. The court conducted a physical hearing.
Chief public prosecutor Aruna Pai argued that a notice was initially issued by the Mumbai Police under Section 41A (notice of appearance before police officer) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which Mr. Kundra refused, but Mr. Thorpe accepted.
She said Mr. Kundra was the admin of Hotshot, the app used to produce and circulate pornographic content. He refused to sign the notice and did not cooperate.
She said a lot of incriminating material was found against them and they had to be arrested because they had started deleting messages from WhatsApp groups, thereby destroying evidence. Therefore Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was added.
She went on to say that there was a hard disk in the office which had over 100 porn videos and Mr. Kundra’s laptop had a film script with sexual content.
Senior advocate Aabad Ponda, appearing for Mr. Kundra, contended that he was not issued a proper notice and was arrested in the garb of recording his statement.
The duo was booked under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 292 (sale, etc., of obscene books, etc.) of the IPC and several relevant sections of the Information Technology Act and the Indecent Representation of Women Act.
