An Indian court is going to pronounce a decision on Tuesday on the bail plea of Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez in the money laundering case.
The 37-year-old actress is being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), India’s government agency that investigates financial crimes.
He has accused her of financial mismanagement and wants to detain her.
Prashant Patil, Fernandez’s lawyer, denied the allegations and insisted there was no legal case against him.
Who is Jacqueline Fernandez?
The case made headlines in India because of Fernandez’s celebrity status.
A Sri Lankan beauty pageant winner and model, she made her Bollywood debut in 2009 and established herself as a popular actress.
Film critics often trash her acting skills, but Fernandez has been paired with some of the industry’s biggest stars, including Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan, and has had some Worked in successful films.
She has participated in stage shows in India and abroad alongside superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra and served as a judge on a popular dance reality show.
A celebrity endorser for several major brands, the actress is routinely found on media lists of “Most Wanted” women, “World’s Sexiest Asian Women” and “Popular Indian Celebrities”.
But since last year, she has been embroiled in an unusual controversy involving an alleged criminal, details of expensive gifts she received and allegations of money laundering against her.
ED officials have called him for questioning on several occasions, filed charges against him in court and are now trying to arrest him. But a Delhi court said he cannot be arrested until his bail plea is decided.
What is the case against Fernandez?
The case centers around her relationship with Skish Chandrasekhar – a 32-year-old man accused by many of extortion and described as a “con man” by authorities and the Indian press.
According to court documents, Chandrasekhar, who has been in jail since 2018 in connection with other cases, was named in a fresh complaint in August last year, accusing him of extorting 2 billion rupees ($24.6m; $24.6m) from a business family. £20.9m) was alleged to have been embezzled. 2020. His lawyer Ashok K Singh has denied all the allegations against his client and said “they have been fabricated”.
While investigating this case, officials say they found that between February and August last year, Chandrasekhar had lavished Jaqueline Fernandez with gifts worth 71.2m rupees which included designer handbags, clothes, jewellery, a horse, cars for her siblings and parents, properties and cash payments.
Fernandez does not deny the gifts but Mr Patil, her lawyer, says that she is also “a victim” of an elaborate crime.
Their relationship
According to court papers, Chandrashekhar first approached Fernandez in December 2020 through Pinky Irani – a woman who was arrested a year after that for her connections with the alleged conman and freed on bail later – but the actress did not show any interest in him then.
She first spoke to him at the end of January 2021 after her staff received a call from what they believed was the Indian home ministry saying that the actress should speak to Chandrashekhar as he was an important official. Investigators say this was a “spoof call” which showed Chandrashekhar’s number as belonging to the home ministry.
Fernandez says he told her that he was the scion of a top political family from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, that he owned a well-known news TV channel and a big jewellery firm and that he was interested in producing a project for a streaming service with her as the lead.
She met him twice in the southern city of Chennai when he was out on parole to attend his uncle’s funeral.
