No interim relief for Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra in plea to allow Thailand trip

The duo had approached HC with an interim application seeking suspension of LOC to travel to Phuket for a family trip and cited confirmed bookings for travel and stay.

A division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Gautam A Ankhad sought the state’s reply to Kundra’s plea by October 8.

The plea also referred to their upcoming international travel plans including a work trip to Los Angeles between October 21 and 24 and travel to Maldives and Colombo between October 26 and 26 for expansion of Hotel Bastian, their hospitality venture.

The application also seeks permission to visit London and Dubai between December 20, and January 6, 2026 to meet Kundra’s parents.

Advocates Niranjan Mundargi and Keral Mehta, for the applicants, claimed that Kundra had cooperated with the probe and appeared before the probing agency last month after he was summoned.

The lawyers also said that the two had travelled abroad on multiple occasions even though another case was registered against them in 2021 and they had returned without violating any conditions.

However, the bench directed Public Prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh for the state government to file a reply to the plea within a week by October 8 when it will hear the matter next.

The court did not grant relief for overseas travel during the first week of October.

As per the complaint filed against the couple by Deepak Kothari, the director of a non-banking financial company (NBFC) called Lotus Capital Financial Services Ltd, the duo approached him through a loan agent Rajesh Arya, as they wanted to take a business loan.

The FIR based on the said complaint claimed a meeting was arranged at a five-star hotel in Juhu where Kundra, Shilpa, Arya and Kothari were present in 2015.

The couple allegedly claimed they were directors of Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd, a now-defunct home shopping and online retail platform, and allegedly sought a loan. However, they persuaded Kothari to route the amounts as “investment” to avoid higher taxation, while assuring monthly returns and repayment of principal. Kothari alleged that the amount was credited to Best Deal TV’s HDFC Bank accounts and that he had given the couple a loan of Rs 60.4 crore for business expansion between 2015 and 2023.

Kothari said he and his company made repeated attempts to recover the money from Kundra and Shetty, but failed, as they cited delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kothari eventually found that the couple had allegedly used the funds for personal benefit and had cheated him.

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