Court Rejects Telugu Actor Raju's Bail Plea

He (Tarun Konduru Raju) misused such privilege by wrongly declaring that the gold being carried by AI (Ranya Rao) was meant to be exported to Bangkok and Geneva, but, instead, that gold was smuggled into India SPECIAL BENGALURU COURT,

- Ayesha Arvind and Arun Dev

BENGALURU: A special Bengaluru court on Wednesday rejected the bail application filed by Telugu actor Tarun Konduru Raju who was arrested on March 10 in connection with the gold smuggling case against his friend and co-accused, Kannada actor Ranya Rao.

Judge Vishwanath C Gowdar, who dismissed Raju's bail plea, noted that Raju had allegedly helped Rao smuggle large quantities of gold from Dubai to India in breach of the Customs Act.

Though no gold was recovered from him at the time of his arrests, the court noted, he made several day-long trips to Dubai with Rao, suggesting that the trips were made for the purpose of smuggling gold.

"Accused number two (Raju), is a US citizen and holds an OCI card that enabled him to travel to Geneva and Bangkok without a visa. He misused such privilege by wrongly declaring that the gold being carried by AI (Rao) was meant to be exported to Bangkok and Geneva, but, instead, that gold was smuggled into India. This shows that A2 had the intention to commit the alleged crime of gold smuggling. Having assisted the accused number one in the smuggling activity, A2 acted in contravention of section 138A of the Customs Act," the court said.