Aditya Pancholi moves Bombay High Court seeking to quash rape case lodged against him

Mumbai: Actor Aditya Pancholi has approached the Bombay High Court seeking to quash a 2019 case of allegedly raping a leading actress. Pancholi in his petition said the FIR was lodged at the suburban Versova police station in June 2019, but to date the police have neither filed a charge sheet nor submitted a closure report.

His advocate Abhinav Chandrachud Tuesday argued before a division bench of Justices NM Jamdar and NR Borkar that not submitting a charge sheet indicates there has been no progress in the investigation. Apart from seeking for the FIR to be quashed, Pancholi also sought direction from the police to inform him about the progress made in the probe into the case.

The high court, after briefly hearing the matter, issued a notice to the police and the woman complainant and posted the matter for further hearing on September 19. The court directed the police to inform on the next date of hearing about the stage of investigation into the case.

Chandrachud argued that the case is pending since 2019 and hanging like a sword over Pancholi’s head who is living under the stigma of being an accused in a rape case. The woman had in her complaint alleged that Pancholi drugged and raped her when she was a newbie in Bollywood. She alleged Pancholi had not only physically assaulted her, but also assaulted her sister.