3 min readKolkataUpdated: Mar 23, 2015 12:11 PM IST
Shilpa Shetty with husband Raj Kundra.
The Kolkata police on Sunday lodged a case against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband Ripu Sudan Kundra alias Raj Kundra, after receiving a complaint that she had allegedly influenced a city-based company to invest Rs 9 crore in shares of a company owned by her, which did not exist.
According to a senior Kolkata Police official, one Debashis Guha, a representative of M K Media Pvt Ltd, which has its office at Shakespeare Sarani here, had alleged that Shilpa and Raj, owners of Essential Sports and Pvt Ltd (ESPL), had allegedly influenced M K Jain, the Managing Director of M K Media, to invest Rs 9 crore in shares of Shilpa’s company, which later Jain found out did not exist.
According to the complaint, 30 lakh equity shares of ESPL were allotted to the complainant who was assured that within two years, MK Media would receive 10 times the amount invested.
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“The payment was made according to an agreement dated November 14, 2011. The court has directed us to initiate a case and start an investigation,” the official said. The case has been lodged under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 418 (cheating with knowledge that wrongful loss may ensue to person whose interest offender is bound to protect), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 388 (extortion by threat of accusation of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life, etc), 389 (putting person in fear of accusation of offence, in order to commit extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.
Officers of Shakespeare Sarani police station said they had started gathering evidence to ascertain the criminality of the case and later if need be, the accused would be interrogated. “The complaint said that authorities of ESPL had not responded to several correspondences and neither had there been any AGM of the company,” said an officer at the police station.
A sources close to the celebrity couple said that 30 per cent of ESPL had been allotted to M K Media. “ESPL had plans to produce TV programmes and a number of reality shows and M K Media was supposed to bring in a total of Rs 50 crore which it failed to bring. Jain had later filed a civil suit and ESPL had been directed to give an affidavit in reply to it. The court has also ordered that till the case is resolved, no movable or immovable asset of the company could be sold without the court’s permission,” the source said.
Shilpa Shetty with husband Raj Kundra.