[BREAKING] Mumbai Court dismisses plea by Sherlyn Chopra seeking anticipatory bail in porn racket case

Mumbai Sessions Court refused to grant anticipatory bail to Bollywood actress Sherlyn Chopra who had approached the Court apprehending arrest after co-accused Raj Kundra was arrested in the porn racket case. .Additional Sessions Judge Sonali Agarwal passed the order on Thursday in Chopra's anticipatory bail application..Chopra was apprehending arrest in relation to the First Information Report (FIR) registered in February 2021 for offences under Sections 292, 293 (sale of obscene material) of the Indian Penal Code, Sections 67, 67A (transmission of sexually explicit material) of Information Technology Act and provisions of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act..Chopra had been served with a summons notice under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) for recording of statement as witness in the case.Advocate Siddhesh Borkar argued on Tuesday that other accused under the FIR had been arrested without service of notice under Section 41A of CrPC and Chopra apprehends a similar treatment..Borkar submitted that Chopra was not aware of the contents in FIR as she was neither given a copy of the FIR nor was she informed of the specific allegations levelled against her.She also apprehended that she may be implicated in the case which contain certain non-bailable offences without knowledge of the true and correct facts in the FIR, it was contended.Borkar responded that Chopra is ready and willing to co-operate with the investigation, however she only fears arrest in the same manner as the others in the case..Responding to the application, Mumbai Police submitted that after arresting the 11 accused in the FIR, it was found that the crime committed may be bigger than it seemed when the FIR was registered. The possibility of the number of victims may be more and the Crime Branch was trying to find out the victims in the case, the Mumbai Police said. .They pointed out that while they were investigating the case, they found out that Chopra had expressed her opinion on electronic and social media. In order to get strong evidence against the accused arrested in the case, the prosecution submitted that it was important to get Chopra's statement recorded. Only for this purpose, a show cause notice was sent to Chopra on July 26, 2021. However instead of appearing before the Crime Branch for recording of statement, Chopra filed the present application..After considering the submissions and contentions of both sides, the Sessions Judge refused to grant pre-arrest bail to Chopra.