Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: The FIR filed against Kukesh Rauta of Odisha, who was detained for allegedly extorting Rs 5 lakh from Aldona MLA Adv Carlos Alvares Ferreira after producing his modified obscene film, was dismissed by the Bombay High Court in Goa.
In addition, the court ordered the petitioner to pay a cost of Rs 1 lakh and deposit the funds into the Goa Police Welfare Fund within two weeks.
In December of last year, Rauta was detained by the Crime Branch police for allegedly extorting Rs 5 lakh from the Aldona MLA by changing his face in a pornographic movie and then requesting Rs 5 crore from him.
In his criminal writ petition (WPCR), Kukesh Rauta asked to have the FIR dismissed, claiming that he and the complainant, Adv. Alvares, had reached a mutually agreeable resolution.
Senior advocate Nitin Sardesai, the petitioner’s attorney, later stated that the High Court had vacated and set aside the FIR and mandated that the police not conduct any additional investigations about the payer.
“We had requested that the FIR be dismissed on the grounds that my client and one of the respondents had ultimately resolved the issue. Since there would never be a conviction, there was no point in pursuing the case, according to senior attorney Sardesai.
The Crime Branch, however, strongly disagreed with the petitioner’s plea, arguing that it would cause social unrest and that the case should be a powerful deterrent.
Senior Adv Sardesai claims that after taking into account the police’s arguments, the court decided that a conviction would not ultimately result. The court’s decision to impose a Rs 1 lakh fine on the petitioner and require him to deposit the money into the Goa Police Welfare Fund within the next 15 days served as the only deterrence.
