Amruta Fadnavis ‘extortion’ case: Aniksha Jaisinghani sent to judicial custody; bail hearing next week

Earlier sent to police custody till Friday, Aniksha was produced before the special court designated under the Prevention of Corruption Act again. Advocate Ajay Misar submitted to judge D D Almale that police wanted to interrogate Aniksha for three more days.

Misar submitted that a woman had accompanied the accused who had done videography and was instructed to pose as her cousin. Police said it had to interrogate Aniksha to ascertain whether videography was done through an Apple or Android phone, adding that the bag with the alleged cash had yet to be recovered.

However, Aniksha’s counsel Manan Sanghai submitted that no case was made out for police custody after eight days of interrogation. He said the maximum punishment prescribed is seven years of imprisonment and that police custody was not required. He said Aniksha was cooperating with the investigation. He said that police had got sufficient time and, as per past Supreme Court judgments, they could therefore not seek her further custody for recovering some documents.

Misar submitted the bag with alleged cash was not yet recovered and that the witness whose statement was recorded had to be confronted with Aniksha.

Anil Jaisinghani, his daughter Aniksha, and Nirmal—arrested for allegedly blackmailing and trying to extort Rs 10 crore from Amruta—were produced in the court on Tuesday. While Anil and Nirmal were sent to police custody till March 27, Aniksha, who was arrested on March 16 and produced for the second time, was remanded in police custody till March 24.

The Malabar Hill police registered an FIR on February 20 against Anil and Aniksha for allegedly trying to blackmail Amruta by threatening to make public some audio and video clips that would make it appear that the latter was accepting favours from her.

As per the complaint, Aniksha had befriended Amruta over the past few years and gained her trust. When she allegedly sought Amruta’s help to get rid of cases pending against her father, the latter blocked her on her phone. A few days later, Aniksha was alleged to have sent audio and video recordings to Amruta to blackmail her.

Aniksha introduced herself as a fashion designer to Amruta. She recently told police that she was not a fashion designer but a law student instead. Police also said that Aniksha had been changing her statements.