Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has dismissed the pre-arrest bail plea filed by actor Rakhi Sawant in an FIR registered against her by her estranged husband Adil Durrani. Durrani had filed a complaint alleging that Sawant had circulated his private, sexually explicit videos on media channels. Justice Sarang Kotwal dismissed her plea on Wednesday.
Sawant had earlier approached the HC challenging the sessions court order rejecting her pre arrest bail plea. However, when Justice Kotwal expressed in February 6 that he was not inclined to grant relief, she withdrew her plea.
The plea was withdrawn based on a statement made by Sawant's advocate. When an unconditional statement is made by a party, and an order is passed by the court based on that statement, it is not to be challenged as the order is passed with the consent of the party and their statements. However, Sawant challenged that withdrawal order before the Supreme Court.
Once again, before the apex court, she withdrew the plea stating that she would “avail appropriate remedy in accordance with law”. Subsequently, Sawant filed another pre-arrest bail application before the high court, which has now been rejected.
“There is some sanctity to the statement made before the Court. After that, this order was challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court, in which, the Hon’ble Supreme Court permitted the learned counsel to withdraw the said Special Leave petition. In this background, it will not be appropriate for this Court to entertain this application,” Justice Kotwal noted.
Sawant and Durrani married last year but the marriage did not sustain for long as there were several differences between them. He was making remarks against her and in her defence she showed this video. Her advocate said that the video was taken five years ago was of poor quality and nothing could be seen clearly as it was blurred.
Sawant was booked under sections 500 (defamation) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67A (publishing sexually explicit material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.
