Mumbai, December 11
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In a development that has drawn fresh scrutiny to the legal troubles of Bollywood personalities, the Bombay High Court has directed actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband, businessman Raj Kundra, to deposit ₹60 crore or furnish a bank guarantee as a precondition for lifting a Lookout Circular (LOC) issued against them in a cheating case.
The order came on Wednesday during the hearing of a petition filed by the couple seeking temporary relief from the LOC to enable travel to London for medical reasons related to Kundra’s ailing father. The bench, comprising Justices S.V. Kotwal and N.J. Jamadar, made it clear that the full amount must be secured before any stay on the circular could be considered.
Sources privy to the matter said the LOC was issued by the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in September, following a first information report registered at Juhu police station on August 14. The case stems from a complaint by Deepak Kothari, director of UY Industries Pvt Ltd, who alleged that the couple induced him to invest ₹60.48 crore between 2015 and 2023 in their now-defunct firm, Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd, under the guise of a loan-cum-share subscription for business expansion.
Kothari claimed the funds, transferred in tranches including ₹31.95 crore in April 2015 and ₹28.53 crore in September 2015 to the company’s HDFC Bank accounts, were diverted for personal use rather than the promised growth of the home shopping and online retail platform. Shilpa Shetty had provided a personal guarantee in April 2016 but resigned as director the following September.
What has raised concerns among observers note that this is not the first brush with financial allegations for Kundra, who faced probes earlier this year in a separate gold investment scheme. The couple’s counsel, senior advocate Abad Ponda, argued that the dispute was purely civil in nature and had already been adjudicated by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Mumbai on October 4, 2024, with no criminal intent involved. He urged the court to accept a surety or alternative security instead of the full deposit.
The bench, however, held firm. It observed that the proposed trip, while described in the plea as non-leisure and limited to visiting Kundra’s father with an undertaking to return as scheduled, could not override the ongoing investigation without safeguards for the complainant. No arrests have been made so far, but prior pleas to quash the FIR or the LOC were rejected pending repayment.
Neither Shetty nor Kundra’s representatives responded to queries on Thursday. The matter is listed for further hearing after the couple complies with the deposit directive, sources added.
