Mumbai/IBNS: A case has been filed against celebrity couple Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra for allegedly cheating a Mumbai-based businessman of Rs. 60 crore, media reports said.

Deepak Kothari alleged he had given Rs. 60.48 crore in the form of loan-cum-investment to actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband for their now-defunct Best Deal TV Pvt. Ltd.

Kothari, the director of Lotus Capital Financial Services, claimed he had come in contact with Shilpa and Raj through agent Rajesh Arya in 2015.

At that time, the celebrity couple was holding 87.6% of the company shares.

Kothari claimed the couple had sought for a loan of Rs. 75 crore at an interest of 12 percent.

The businessman claimed he was persuaded to give the money in the form of investment to avoid high taxes.

Kothari claimed he had credited the money in two installments- Rs. 31.95 crore in April 2015 and Rs. 28.53 crore in September 2015- to Best Deal TV Pvt. Ltd.'s HDFC bank accounts.

Shetty, as Kothari claimed, had resigned as the director of Best Deal TV in September 2016.

Next year, an insolvency case of Rs. 1.28 crore had come up against the company, Kothari claimed.

Kothari, who said his repeated attempts to recover his loan through Arya failed, alleged the celebrity couple had spent the money for their personal causes.

Earlier, the couple were accused of fraud in a gold scheme.

Raj Kundra was arrested in 2021 for production and distribution of pornographic content through apps like Hotshots.

He was also accused of money laundering linked to the streaming of adult contents via those apps.

Raj spent 63 days in Arthur Road Jail before securing a bail.