India

‘Bad Boy Billionaires’: Choksi again knocks HC’s door over web series

New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) The Delhi High Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh appeal filed by fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi challenging an earlier order that dismissed his plea seeking postponement of the release of Netflix’s upcoming web series ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’.

The appeal filed through advocates Vijay Aggarwal and Mudit Jain is listed for hearing before a division bench of the high court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan.

A single-judge bench of the high court presided by Justice Navin Chawla last Friday turned down a petition filed by Choksi against Netflix’s upcoming show ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’ seeking postponement of its release date.

The bench while dismissing the petition granted liberty to Choksi to seek appropriate legal remedy. “The remedy of the petitioner would be in a civil suit as what is being alleged by the petitioner is infringement of his private right. In view of the abuse submissions, the present petition is dismissed leaving it open to the petitioner to seek appropriate legal remedy,” the judge said.

Choksi in his plea had sought the court’s direction to the OTT platform to not release the episode/portion of the documentary ‘Bad Boy Billionaires” India’ insofar as it relates to Choksi or is prejudicial to his rights or mentions him during the pendency of investigations and/or trials against him.

Choksi in his petition stated that he became aware of the documentary’s imminent release on August 24 when he saw the trailer and started receiving phone calls from various persons across the world, including from Delhi, asking him whether he was part of the documentary and to solicit his comments on the same.

“Thereafter, the petitioner discovered that one of the persons seen speaking in the trailer was one Mr Pavan C. Lall who had written a book titled ‘Flawed: The Rise and Fall of India’s Diamond Mogul Nirav Modi’ where also the petitioner’s name had been comingled with Nirav Modi’s,” said the plea.

The plea states that with the release of this documentary there is a real and substantial threat of prejudice to the fairness of the trial and to the rights of the petitioner (Choksi) under Articles 21. “A trial by media is always detrimental to the case of the petitioner and is totally contrary to the trite rule that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law,” the plea read.

Choksi further stated that the release of the documentary would severely impact his reputation as well as create a widespread perception of guilt notwithstanding the fact that no competent court has found him guilty.

–IANS

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