Kerala High Court To Consider Sunny Leone's Anticipatory Bail Application Tomorrow

Bollywood actor Sunny Leone has filed an anticipatory bail application in the Kerala High Court apprehending arrest in a cheating case.

A single bench of Justice Ashok Menon will consider the application tomorrow.

The Crime Branch police station, Ernakulam, registered the FIR against the actor and two others on August 2, 2019 for offences under Sections 406, 420 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code on an allegation that they failed to perform a stage show as per an agreement after accepting Rs 39 lakhs as consideration.

Leone's husband Daniel Weber and her employee Sunil Rajani, who are named as co-accused in the FIR, have also joined the pre-arrest bail plea.

The application states that the agreement was with respect to a stage show to be performed at Calicut in May 2018. It is stated that after the agreement was finalized after accepting 50% of the balance consideration, the organizer wanted to postpone the show by three months, which was not agreeable to the petitioners.

The petitioners argue that the organizers insisted to change the agreed date and venue on many occasion and demanded the performance of the contract without paying the balance consideration. The petitioners claim that they had reached Kochi on February 14, 2019 to perform a show on the Valentines Day under the bona fide belief that the balance amounts would be paid to them. But the complainants did not pay the amount and instead coerced the petitioners to perform the show.

It is argued that the the allegations pertain to breach of contract, which do not give rise to criminality. Since it is a pure contractual dispute, the FIR registered for cheating and criminal breach of trust is unsustainable in law, the petitioners argue.

Leone was questioned by the Crime Branch officials last week.