Bombay High Court quashes FIR against former secretary of Priyanka Chopra after actress grants consent

The Bombay High Court today quashed a first information report (FIR) lodged on the basis of a complaint by actress Priyanka Chopra against her former secretary Prakash Jaju, after she granted consent for the same..The FIR was quashed by a Bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and PK Chavan after Chopra submitted an affidavit granting her consent, following an unconditional apology by Jaju..In the affidavit filed through Advocate Rahul Agarwal, Chopra stated that Jaju approached her in order to settle the issue and after detailed deliberation, she decided to resolve the matter. .Chopra appeared in Court through a video conference call from the United States to reiterate the contents of her affidavit After quashing the FIR, the Court directed Jaju to deposit ₹50,000 with the police welfare fund..The Court was hearing a writ petition in which Jaju pointed that in July 2008, there had been an exchange of text messages between him and Chopra, which the latter found to be objectionable. This prompted the actress to lodge a complaint with the Mumbai Police, which registered an FIR and booked Jaju under Sections 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 509 (insulting modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Information Technology Act.After the police filed a chargesheet, a criminal complaint was also registered before the Metropolitan Magistrate at Esplanade on the same offences.Pursuant to this, Jaju filed the present petition seeking quashing of the FIR and the criminal proceedings before the magistrate. .Jaju pointed out in his petition filed through Dewani Associates that there had been differences between the parties due to payment of dues for services rendered by Jaju. This led to the filing of multiple civil and criminal proceedings against each other. After the intervention of well-wishers, the two reached a settlement and decided to amicably resolve their differences. Chopra paid an amount of ₹29 lakh to Jaju towards unpaid dues as part of the settlement, and Jaju on his part agreed to never contact the actress, the petition stated. .He also claimed that another complaint lodged by Chopra's father with a Metropolitan Magistrate at Andheri alleging the same offences had been compounded with the consent of the parties. He was purportedly acquitted through an order passed during the National Lok Adalat in July 2019. .Jaju pointed out that since both parties had resolved all commercial differences and cleared all misunderstanding, the present FIR against him was liable to be quashed.

Bombay High Court quashes FIR against former secretary of Priyanka Chopra after actress grants consent

Neha Joshi

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