Sushmita Sen given clean chit in Land Cruiser import case

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court revoked the show cause notice issued to Bollywood actor Sushmita Sen in the Land Cruiser import case on Monday, as the prosecution argued that there was no evidence about her involvement in any scam.
    
Mumbai police and custom authorities are currently probing an inter-state car import racket that brings foreign cars to India evading customs duty.
    
But the government pleader Dhairyasheel Nalavade told the Court that "till date there is nothing against the petitioner (Sushmita)."
    
Sushmita bought the car in 2005, but soon Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) sought penalty of Rs 23 lakh from her for evading customs duty.
    
The High Court held that the MCGM can't impose a penalty as only a court of law could do that.
    
However, the court also issued a show-cause notice to her, noting that there was a prima facie of some misrepresentation of facts on her part, and an attempt to evade customs duty.
    
Following this, police started investigating the case. The investigators found that there was an inter-state racket that brought cars to India using 'transfer of residence' exemption.
    
Haren Choksi, the agent through whom Sushmita acquired the car, is allegedly involved in this racket.
    
Since the prosecution has not unearthed anything against Sushmita, division bench of Justices F I Rebello and R S Mohite directed that show cause notice against her be dropped. However a probe into the case will continue.