[Raj Kundra Arrest] Bombay High Court reserves verdict in plea challenging remand to police custody in porn film case

The Bombay High Court on Monday reserved the plea filed by businessman Raj Kundra assailing his remand to custody and subsequent orders of the Metropolitan Magistrate in the porn film racket case. .In his plea before the High Court, Kundra also sought for interim bail pending the hearing of the petition, which was not granted by the Court. After hearing both sides at length, Justice AS Gadkari reserved the case for orders..Kundra's contentions challenging his custody were:That the maximum punishment attracted by the offences alleged against him is upto 7 years;That the notice by the police under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was given despite admittedly having no intention to arrest Kundra;That it was completely illegal to arrest him without complying with the requirement of law and the guidelines in the Arnesh Kumar judgment and In Re: Contagion..Chief Public Prosecutor Aruna Pai, appearing for the Mumbai Police, opposed the plea, stating that Kundra had been arrested only because he had refused to acknowledge the notice under Section 41A CrPC, which implied that there was no intention to co-operate from his end..[Porn Racket case] Refusal by Raj Kundra to accept notice indicates his reluctance to co-operate with probe: Mumbai Police to Bombay High Court.She added that Kundra was arrested because he was trying to destroy or had already destroyed some of the evidence that the agency was trying to recover. “The attitude of Kundra speaks volumes of his co-operation in the investigation. We do not know if it is all deleted. Investigation is ongoing. Police is trying to retireve,” Pai informed the Court. .She also argued that the investigating agency could not have stood there as “mute spectators” while evidence was being destroyed, as that would have ruined the purpose of investigation. .She concluded by pointing out that the evidence collected against Kundra had been considered by the Magistrate before he passed his orders remanding Kundra to custody..Senior Advocate Aabad Ponda, appearing for Kundra, submitted that the reason claimed for adding Section 201 (causing evidence to disappear) of Indian Penal Code as a charge against his client was an afterthought to meet the requirements to tackle this petition..He argued that the contentions of the Mumbai Police seeking his custody and extension of custody changed with each remand, and were not consistent. Further, there was nothing on record to show that the evidence had been deleted when there was a panchnama made, Ponda added.He argued that such an averment was not made in the arrest, or first and subsequent remands, or charge during remand, or ground for further custody..Assuming the prosecution’s contention to be true that Kundra had destroyed evidence, Ponda argued that in presence of 22 officers, the same could not have been possible. "I am submitting that the panchnama was not giving details of my deleting the evidence. The notice was given to me after panchnama, while I had no equipment (laptop or mobile) to delete anything," Ponda said, concluding his submissions..The husband of actress Shilpa Shetty had been charged with offences under Sections 292, 293 (sale of obscene material) under the Indian Penal Code, Sections 67, 67A (transmission of sexually explicit material) under the Information Technology Act and provisions of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.He was arrested by the Mumbai Police on Monday and produced before the Metropolitan Magistrate at Esplanade, who remanded him to police custody till July 23, 2021,which was extended till July 27.On Tuesday, the Magistrate remanded Kundra to judicial custody for 14 days.His bail application was rejected on July 28, 2021 by the Magistrate Court.