Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra seek quashing of FIR in ₹60.48-cr cheating case

The couple’s plea seeking quashing of the FIR was filed on October 8 following which a division bench directed them to serve a copy of the petition to the complainant

MUMBAI: Actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband and businessman Raj Kundra have moved the Bombay High Court, seeking to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police for allegedly cheating businessman Deepak Kothari of ₹60.48 crore.

Actor Shilpa Shetty

The couple’s plea seeking quashing of the FIR was filed on October 8 following which the division bench of justices Shree Chandrashekhar and Gautam Ankhad directed them to serve a copy of the petition to Kothari. The next hearing in the case is scheduled on November 20.

According to the FIR against Shetty and Kundra, the couple needed a loan of ₹75 crore for their company, M/s Best Deal, engaged in the online retail business. They met Kothari at their residence and used their name and reputation to lure him and a certain Rajesh Aarya into transferring ₹60.48 crore to them in various tranches between 2015 to March 2016.

While the couple agreed to pay 12% interest to Kothari for five years, all the parties agreed that the amount received by Shetty and Kundra be shown as investment for convenience and tax purposes.

On September 29, 2026, Kothari was “shocked” to have received an email from Shetty, informing him of her resignation from the company. Subsequently, he discovered that the company was facing liquidation on account of non-payment of ₹1.28 crore and that the proceedings were admitted on May 5, 2017.

Kothari allegedly contacted Shetty to sort out the repayment, but did not receive any response despite repeated requests and follow-ups. Realising that he had been duped, he filed a complaint about the alleged fraud, based on which the police registered an FIR against the couple.

In their petition before the high court, filed through advocate Prashant Patil on October 8, the couple stated that the allegations against them were false and had been maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive to extort money. Their company, Best Deal, was stabilising and moving towards profitability until the union government demonetised high value currency notes in 2016 which severely impacted their business, they claimed.

Later, Kothari and his son, Uday, began harassing them and demanded a refund of the amount he had “invested” in their company, they said.

“He falsely alleged that the amount was advanced as a loan. They started issuing threats to the couple through various police and enforcement officers, and repeatedly threatened to malign their reputation in the media,” the couple’s petition in the high court said.

The petition further flagged that the FIR had been registered after an inordinate delay of ten years “with the sole objective of harassing them and coercing them into paying back the investment amount by tarnishing their image and goodwill before the public and the media”. The investment of ₹60.48 crore in Best Deal by Kothari was purely on share subscription (equity) basis, they said in the plea.

Shetty and Kundra said the FIR against them lacked “foundational basis” and proceedings against them would amount to a “miscarriage of justice”. They sought a direction from the high court to quash the FIR and direct the Mumbai police to not file any charge sheet in the case.