Delhi court reserves order on bail plea of Jacqueline Fernandez in extortion case

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order on the bail plea of Bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez who has been on interim protection from arrest in a purported ₹200 crore money laundering case involving alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar.

Additional Sessions Judge Shailender Malik has reserved the actor’s plea for pronouncement on Friday, informed her counsel Aman Nandrajog. 

Her lawyers Prashant Patil and Nandrajog had moved a bail plea arguing that during the course of the investigation, she had never been arrested. 

On September 26, she was granted the interim relief on a bond of ₹50,000.

On August 31, the court had summoned the actor after considering the supplementary chargesheet that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed on August 17. Fernandez was then directed to appear before the court.

She has been named as an accused in the chargesheet for the first time in the case.

According to the ED, after searches were conducted at premises linked to Chandrasekhar and his associates, 16 luxury vehicles belonging to co-accused Leena Paulose or others were found.

A chargesheet previously filed named eight accused including Chandrasekhar, Leena Maria Paul, Deepak Ramnani, Pradeep Ramnani, Kamlesh Kothari, Avtar Singh Kochhar and two others in the ₹200-crore money laundering case.

In an another application seeking release of her passport, Fernandez had stated that she had been living in India since 2009 and held repute in the Indian film fraternity. It was pointed out that the investigating agency had not named her as an accused in the case, but seized her passport without citing any reason.