Bollywood Icon Shilpa Shetty and her entrepreneur husband Raj Kundra have dashed to the Bombay High Court in a desperate bid to dismantle a staggering ₹60-crore cheating FIR slapped on them by Mumbai's Economic Offences Wing (EOW). The power couple, no strangers to the spotlight, is now locked in a high-stakes legal showdown that's captivating fans and foes alike, with whispers of extortion swirling around the explosive allegations.

The saga kicked off with a fiery complaint from Deepak Kothari, Director of non-banking financial firm Lotus Capital Financial Services Ltd, who claims the duo lured him into a trap between 2015 and 2023. According to Kothari, a glitzy 2015 meeting at a Juhu five-star hotel—featuring Shetty, Kundra, agent Rajesh Arya, and himself—led to his ₹60 crore investment in their venture, Best Deal TV Pvt Ltd. He accuses them of siphoning the cash for lavish personal perks, leaving him high and dry in what he dubs a classic bait-and-switch scam.

In a blistering counterattack, Shetty and Kundra's petitions blast the FIR as a "false and distorted" fabrication, cooked up with "ulterior and malafide motives" purely to squeeze them for hush money. Shetty distances herself sharply, insisting her role in the company was fleeting and hands-off, far removed from any gritty operational decisions. The duo argues this is no criminal caper but a straightforward civil spat born from a botched business deal, pleading with the court to squash the case outright, halt any chargesheet, and shield them from police strong-arm tactics during the probe.

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The courtroom clash erupted on Monday before a heavyweight bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekar and Justice Gautam Ankhad, who swiftly ordered the couple to hand over their filings to Kothari and slotted a full showdown for November 20. This isn't their first rodeo with the law—earlier this year, the HC quipped they deposit the full ₹60 crore as collateral for foreign travel nods amid a Look Out Circular, a nod to the case's sticky web. Represented by ace lawyer Prashant Patil, the pair vows the probe lacks meaty evidence, framing it as a witch hunt against their empire.

At its core, the couple pins the company's 2016 nosedive on brutal external blows like demonetisation, which gutted their cash-heavy TV sales model and sparked unavoidable losses—no fraud, no foul play, just the harsh grind of economic whiplash. As the November 20 hearing looms, this celebrity courtroom thriller could either vindicate Shetty and Kundra's innocence or unravel their hard-won reputations, leaving Bollywood buzzing over whether justice will spotlight the stars or the shadows.

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