Sushmita Sen given clean chit in Land Cruiser import case

Mumbai, Nov 17: The Bombay High Court today revoked the show cause notice issued to Bollywood actor Sushmita Sen in the Land Cruiser import case, 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 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. High Court, last year, held that MCGM cannot impose 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. If a person brings his own car to India, he has to pay much less duty. The racketeers prepared fake documents and imported cars to India under TR exemptions. Cars were then sold to buyers here. Haren Choksi, the agent through whom Sushmita acquired the car, is allegedly involved in this racket. But since 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, probe in the case will continue. Bureau Report