Magistrate court rejects Raj Kundra’s bail plea

A metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra who was arrested by the property cell of Mumbai Police’s crime branch on July 19 in connection with a pornography film racket

A metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra who was arrested by the property cell of Mumbai Police’s crime branch on July 19 in connection with a pornography film racket.

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Kundra moved the bail plea on Monday, immediately after the magistrate refused to extend his police custody and remanded him in judicial custody.

Opposing his bail plea, police claimed that the investigation so far has revealed that the 45-year-old businessman had set up a company, Armsprime Media Pvt Ltd., which developed the mobile phone application Hotshots and sold it to London-based Kenrin Pvt Ltd, which is owned by his brother-in-law. Police claimed Kundra used the app to upload pornographic videos shot in and around Mumbai for paid viewership on the app.

The property cell further alleged that Kundra was one who controlled the operation of the app and had earned over ₹1.17 crore between August and December last year by means of subscription fee collected from Apple App Store users of his mobile application. Police are yet to get the details of his earnings from Google Play Store users.

Police further claimed that they had found 51 obscene videos at Kundra’s office in Andheri which included 35 videos with Hotshots logo and 16 with logo of BollyFame app, which the businessman had developed after Apple and Google removed Hotshots from their respective app stores.