MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) today dismissed separate petitions filed by Raj Kundra and his tech associate Ryan Thorpe challenging their arrest by the property cell of Mumbai Police’s crime branch in connection with an alleged production and digital distribution of pornography films.

Kundra, husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, and Thorpe had also challenged subsequent remand orders passed by the metropolitan magistrate's court in a case of alleged production and streaming of pornographic content on apps. 

While Kundra was arrested on July 19, Thorpe was arrested the next day, both under several sections of the IPC and the IT Act on charges of voyeurism, sale of obscene content, cheating, destruction of evidence, and transmission of sexually explicit material. They are currently lodged in judicial custody.

They were booked under several sections of the IPC and the IT Act on charges of voyeurism, sale of obscene content, cheating, destruction of evidence, and transmission of sexually explicit material, etc. Both of them are in judicial custody currently.

A single-judge bench of justice AS Gadkari who had reserved the verdict on the same on August 2, held that their arrest and remand in police custody was very much 'within the conformity of the provisions of law' and the July 20 magisterial order 'did not suffer from any error'.

In their petitions Kundra and Thorpe, had termed their arrest as illegal, saying that the mandatory provision of issuing a notice under section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) had not been followed and had thus petitioned to be released on bail. The police have however claimed that Kundra had refused to accept the notice under the said section.

Opposing the petitions by the accused, public prosecutor Aruna Pai had pointed out that even as the two accused refused to accept the police notice they have not co-operated in the investigation, rather they have attempted to destroy evidence. She said that several video clips had been recovered from Kundra's laptop, and there existed enough evidence against him and Thorpe to warrant their arrest and custody.

Senior advocate Aabad Ponda, who had appeared for Kundra in the high court, had argued that even if Kundra had refused to accept the 41A notice as alleged by the police, the prosecution was expected to seek the court's permission under section 41A(4) of the CrPC before arresting him.

Advocate Abhinav Chandrachud, who appeared for Thorpe, also argued that there existed discrepancies in the claims made against Thorpe by the Mumbai Police's crime branch while seeking his custody.

After all the arguments, Justice Gadkari accepted Pai’s contentions and dismissed both the petitions.