In a relief to actress Sunny Leone, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday restrained Kerala Police from arresting her and two others in a cheating case filed by an event management company.
A bench headed by Justice Ashok Menon issued the order considering the anticipatory bail plea of Leone, her husband Daniel Weber and their employee Sunil Rajani. Though Leone’s arrest was restrained, the court has given permission to the Crime Branch to question her only if necessary.
Earlier, the Kerala police officers called her in for questioning on a fraud case related to a programme in the state. Reportedly, Perumbavoor native Shiyas claims that the actress failed to participate in an event he coordinated despite having collected Rs 29 Lakh.
However, it was during the questioning that the actress realized that a First Information Report (FIR) was filed against her under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code including Section 420 (cheating) and Section 406 (criminal breach of trust).
On the other hand, the actress dismissed the claims and said that the organisers postponed the event five times. She stressed that the lack of appearance was due to the lapses from the part of the programme committee. However, she expressed her willingness to attend the event once the programme organisers reschedule it.
However, while this would be her first legal trouble in Kerala, the Bollywood actress had her share of troubles before. In 2016, Big Boss 5 contestant and model Pooja Mishra had filed a criminal defamation case against Sunny Leone and sought a sum of Rs 100 Crore as compensation, claiming that Leone had repeatedly “defamed” her.
In her plea, Mishra claimed that Leone had given statements against her in newspapers and this damaged her “reputation in the public eye”. She further alleged that due to the public humiliation, she was forced to break her fixed deposits, withdraw her savings, as she suffered losses to the tune of Rs 70 Lakh because of losing out on work.
On January 22, Bollywood actress Sunny Leone had reached Kerala along with her husband and their three children reached Thiruvananthapuram airport for the shooting of the 13th season of MTV Splitsvilla, an Indian reality dating television show. This was her repeat visit to God’s Own Country as she had first arrived here in 2017.
