Famous Bollywood comedian Rajpal Yadav and his wife Radha on Tuesday earned the wrath of Delhi High Court which sentenced him to ten days in jail for contempt in a recovery suit of Rs 5-crore pending against them.
Rajpal Yadav’s wife got away with lighter punishment as the court noted that she had an infant to take care of. Sending Rajpal Yadav to ten days’ judicial custody, the court said: “The court sentences Rajpal Yadav to ten days’ simple imprisonment and directs the police to take him into custody. As far as defendant No. 3 (Radha) is concerned, the court takes a lenient view as she has a child with her. She will be in the room of the
Registrar-General till the closing hour of the court,” Justice Muralidhar said. The actor and his wife, facing contempt proceedings in the suit filed by Delhi-based businessman MG Agarwal against them for recovery of Rs 5 crore, were held guilty of misleading the court and avoiding appearance. Justice Muralidhar termed the sequence of events in the case as a shocking state of affairs.
It said the couple, which had been held guilty of contempt earlier also, was avoiding appearance before it to present views on quantum of sentence. “This case presents a shocking state-of-affairs. Rajpal Yadav and his wife have already been punished for contempt of court and the case has been kept pending only on the question of sentence. Instead of mitigating the contempt committed, defendants have systematically aggravated the contempt by making misleading statements in court and acting in defiance of the court’s order. Added to this unfortunate state-of-affairs are the untruths spoken by their counsel in court,” it said.
The court also issued contempt notices to the lawyer of Yadav’s wife for allegedly lying about her whereabouts and the Oath Commissioner who had attested the affidavit. Dealing with the role of lawyers, the court said: “Suffice it to say that the counsels for the defendants have not acted as officers of the court and have failed to discharge their duty towards the court.”
Referring to Monday’s proceedings, the court said it was “an even more serious contempt” as it was wrongly averred by the lawyer that Radha was in Delhi or in Ghaziabad and would reach court, when in fact, she was in Mumbai. The court also attached the couple’s joint account in Axis Bank at Malad in Mumbai as well as the account of their company in the same bank and sought compliance from the bank within one week.
It asked Rajpal Yadav to comply with the earlier order and “make a disclosure on affidavit of all immovable and movable assets of defendants (the couple and their company) by next date.” A recovery suit has been filed by Delhi-based businessman MG Agarwal against Rajpal and his wife after they failed to repay Rs 5 crore which the actor had taken in 2010 to make his Hindi debut directional film Ata Pata laapata.