Karnataka High Court Rejects Plea Challenging Actress Ranya Rao's COFEPOSA Detention In Gold Smuggling Case

The Karnataka High Court on Friday dismissed the petition filed by the mother of arrested Kannada actress Harshavardhini Ranya Rao, seeking to declare that her detention under COFEPOSA, as illegal and void-ab initio.

A division bench of Justice Anu Sivaraman and Justice Vijaykumar A Patil dismissed the petition. The court had on December 1, reserved its judgment on the petition after hearing the parties.

The detention order was passed while the accused was in judicial custody after being arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on allegations of smuggling gold and booked for offences u/s 135(1)(a) and 135(1)(b), 135 (1)(a)(i)(a) 135(1)(a)(i)(b), 135(1)(b)(i)(a), 135(1)(b)(i)(b) of the Customs Act. On April 26, the court had rejected her bail plea.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had seized gold bars worth ₹12.56 crore from Ranya at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on March 3. A subsequent search of her home had yielded gold jewellery worth ₹2.06 crore and Indian currency amounting to ₹2.67 crore.

The petition states that in accordance with Law and the Constitution of India, the Detenu was required to have been furnished with the Grounds of Detention and relied upon documents along with the Order of Detention.

However, the plea alleges that the same is not provided to the detenue. Further, the order of detention and grounds of detention are manifestly erroneous and illegal and shows non application of mind on the part and hence has rendered the detention illegal, it adds.

"The Order of Detention suffers from non-application of mind inasmuch as there is no head of detention under Section 3(1) of the COFEPOSA Act to detain the Detenu from smuggling goods, engaging in transporting, concealing and keeping smuggled goods," the plea states.

Case Title: H P Rohini AND Joint Secretary & Others

Case No: WPHC 47/2025

Citation No: 2025 LiveLaw (Kar) 430