Bombay HC extends bail for actor convicted for conspiring to kill Madhur Bhandarkar

The Bombay high court on Monday extended till June 7 the bail granted to model and actor Preeti Jain, who was sentenced to three years in jail by a lower court for plotting to kill film-maker Madhur Bhandarkar.

A vacation bench presided by Justice MS Karnik granted the prosecution time till June 7, the next date of the hearing, to respond to Jain’s plea.

On April 28 this year, a trial court had found Jain and two others guilty of conspiring to kill Bhandarkar. The court had convicted and sentenced Jain to imprisonment for three years. On the same day however, the court had granted Jain bail till May 25.

On Monday, Jain’s counsel, advocate Sujit Shelar, argued that the trial court’s order on Jain’s conviction was “erronous.” Jain’s appeal argued the trial court had “ignored loopholes in all major evidence presented by the prosecution”. Shelar claimed that although the trial court had observed that the “FIR against her Jain was faulty”, that the prosecution had “failed to establish a motive behind the crime,” and the “money trail was insufficient evidence”, it had gone ahead with the conviction.

The case against Jain dates back to July 2004. She had lodged a complaint against Bhandarkar accusing him of raping her 16 times since 1999. She had alleged that Bhandarkar, under the pretext of giving her a lead role in his films, had raped her. Bhandarkar denied the allegations and subsequently, the Supreme Court had quashed the rape case against him in 2012.

Meanwhile, in 2005 however, Jain was arrested for “conspiring” to have Bhandarkar “murdered”. According to the police, the conspiracy came to light when Jain approached the Akhil Bharatiya Sena to recover Rs 40,000 that she had allegedly paid to one Naresh Pardeshi to kill Bhandarkar.