Shilpa Shetty, husband Raj Kundra charged with cheating businessman of Rs 60 crore

Mumbai: Actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra have been charged with cheating a Mumbai-based businessman of Rs 60 crore in a loan-cum-investment deal linked to the couple’s now-defunct Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd, according to NDTV.

After the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed a case, the celebrity couple denied the charges saying they were ‘baseless and malicious’.

The complainant, Deepak Kothari, who is a director of Lotus Capital Financial Services Limited that provides loans, said the attempts to recover the money failed as the couple and a mediator pointed to pandemic-related delays, according to The Indian Express.

However it came to the notice of Kothari that the couple, cheating him, used the funds for their personal benefit.

Kothari in his complaint alleged that a loan agent in his firm, Rajesh Arya, told him that the celebrity couple Kundra and Shetty whom the agent knew personally wanted a business loan.

Following which Raj Kundra, Shilpa Shetty, Arya, and the complainant, along with his son met at five-star hotel in Juhu.

Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty Kundra claimed to have been directors of the now-defunct home shopping and online retail platform, Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd with Shetty reportedly holding 87.61 per cent of the shares.

The couple sought a loan of ₹75 crore at 12 per cent interest, which he agreed; however they reportedly wanted him to route the funds as an ‘investment’ to evade higher taxation, even as assuring ‘returns and repayment of principal’.

Subsequently, under a share subscription agreement he transferred ₹31.95 crore in April 2015 and then ₹28.53 crore in September 2015 under a supplementary agreement.

The FIR further stated that Kothari received an email from Shilpa Shetty’s email address claiming that she had stepped down as director in September 2016 from Best Deal TV. When he sought the reason, she allegedly did not give him a satisfactory answer.

Later he filed a complaint at the Juhu Police Station leading to registering a case under sections 403 (dishonest and misappropriation of property), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 34 (common intention) against Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty Kundra.