Payal Rohatgi sent to jail till Dec 24

TV and reality star Payal Rohatgi on Monday was sent to judicial custody till December 24 by a metropolitan court soon after she was brought to Bundi from Ahmedabad after her arrest on Sunday.

Rohatgi was produced in Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate court and sent to 8-day judicial custody.

The model-turned-reality show star will apply for bail on Tuesday. Her advocate Bhupendra Sahay Saxena presented a bail plea on Thursday for which court asked to present case diary.

As case diary could not be produced on the same day, the court fixed Monday as the date for bail hearing.

On October 10, 2019, a complaint was lodged by Congress worker Charmesh Sharma against Rohatgi for posting an objectionable video on Nehru and his family on Facebook and Twitter.

Police lodged a case against her under section 504, 505(2) of the IPC and started investigation.

According to senior lawyers, she can be awarded a two year imprisonment or penalty if convicted. As it is a non-bailable offence, bail cannot be granted by the police, they said.

“Despite several notices sent to her, Rohatgi did not come to Bundi for interrogation. The notices were sent via email, posts and even a team was sent there to look for her. However, this time, the police team found her and hence she was arrested,” Bundi Superintendent of Police (SP) Mamta Gupta said.

“We will now interrogate her why she made this video and what was her objective behind it. The police team from Bundi had camped in Ahmedabad since last three days under thana in-charge Lokendra Paliwal and finally she was arrested on Sunday,” she said on Sunday.

Soon after her arrest, Rohatgi tweeted, “I am arrested by @PoliceRajasthan for making a video on #MotilalNehru which I made from taking information from @google… Freedom of Speech is a joke,” read a post on her Twitter handle.