A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Mumbai discharged actress Shilpa Shetty in an obscenity case from 2007. A complaint was filed against her in 2007 after Hollywood actor Richard Gere hugged and kissed Shilpa in public during an AIDS awareness event in Alwar, Rajasthan.
The complaint was earlier filed in Alwar, Rajasthan, however it was transferred to the court in Ballard Pier in Mumbai after the intervention of the Supreme Court.
Shilpa Shetty, in her discharge plea said that she was accused of not stopping Gere when she was being kissed, however this does not make her a conspirator, the plea added.
The plea was filed through Advocate Madhukar Dalvi.
“The accusation against her was that she had not protested when she was kissed by accused Gere.This, by no stretch of imagination, made her a conspirator or perpetrator of any crime.The sections she was booked under could not be applied against her.”
Shilpa Shetty and Gere was booked under Sections 292 (Sale etc of obscene books), 293 (Sale, etc of obscene objects to young person), 294 (Obscene acts and songs), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, Section 67 of the IT Act and sections 4 and 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
“It seems that the accused Shilpa Shetty is the victim of the alleged act of accused no. 1 (Richard Gere). Not a single element of any of the alleged offence is being satisfied in the complaint.”
Magistrate Ketaki Chavan.
Shilpa Shetty in her plea had claimed that the charges against her were frivolous and baseless and the complaint did not disclose any overt act under these sections against her. She also said that she was only participating in a charitable cause for spreading awareness on AIDS.
The case was transferred to Mumbai in 2017 on the orders of Supreme Court.