Bombay High Court suspends LOC against Rhea Chakraborty for a week to travel abroad for event

The vacation bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday suspended the lookout circular (LOC) issued against actor Rhea Chakraborty by CBI and allowed her to travel to Dubai for a week (December 27 to January 2) for a pet food company’s event as a brand ambassador.

The CBI had issued the LOC in connection with a probe related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death in 2020.

A vacation bench of Justices Kamal R Khata and Jitendra S Jain passed an order in a plea by Chakraborty, who, through advocate Abhinav Chandrachud, had said she is the brand ambassador of a pet food manufacturer and had to travel to Dubai between December 27 and January 2.

On December 20, the CBI’s advocate Shreeram Shirsat submitted that the actor was no longer the company’s brand ambassador and that the investigative agency had written to the firm to verify her claim and was awaiting its reply.

The bench granted the agency time to verify the claim and allowed Chakraborty to approach the vacation bench on December 26 seeking relief.

Chakraborty, who was arrested in September 2020 in connection with a drugs case filed by the CBI, was granted bail in October 2020. Among the conditions of her bail was that she seek permission from the court before travelling out of the country.

In June 2022, she was permitted to go to Abu Dhabi for a film award, but she did not go abroad stating that she was not aware that a LOC had been issued for her by the CBI at the time.