The Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court at Mumbai remanded businessman Raj Kundra and his associate Ryan Tharp to police custody till 23rd of July in a connection with the Mumbai Crime Branch's ongoing investigation pertaining to the alleged production and distribution of pornographic videos. The accused are booked under sections 354(C) (Voyeurism), 292 (sale of obscene...
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court at Mumbai remanded businessman Raj Kundra and his associate Ryan Tharp to police custody till 23rd of July in a connection with the Mumbai Crime Branch's ongoing investigation pertaining to the alleged production and distribution of pornographic videos.
The accused are booked under sections 354(C) (Voyeurism), 292 (sale of obscene content), 420(cheating) of the IPC and sectionsSections 67, 67A(transmission of sexually explicit material) of theIT Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
The Crime Branch informed the court that Kundra is a "key conspirator"in the racket, and they have found various foreign transaction of his companywith the company uploading pornographic content from a foreign IP address in London.
The police claimed that Kundra owned an app called'Hotshot'that created pornographic content. Later the application was sold to UK based accused Pradeep Bakshi, allegedly Kundra's relative. However, Kundra still called the shots.
The police has said that the accused would lure struggling models and actresses. They added that accused model GehnaVasisth was the director of these porn videos and another arrested accused Umesh Kamat worked for Kundra.
They alleged that Kundra made a WhatApp group on which he would "monitor the revenue" of the App and give instructions to other accused on how to increase the revenue. The application was actually removed from Google play store, the prosecution said.
They added that the police said they have the list of those who purchased the porn content.
Senior advocate AabadPonda appearing on behalf of Kundra claimed policy custody should be an exception and not a norm.
He claimed Kundra was not served a notice to join the investigation u/s 41 of the CrPC even though the offences were not punishable with imprisonment of over 7 years.
He submitted that Section 67 A of IT act talks about sexually explicit acts. He argued that only the actual act of intercourse can be considered porn and the rest was all just vulgar content.
The claimed that nothing in the remand showed that two people actually indulged in act of intercourse.
The court then remanded the accused to custody till July 23.