The Karnataka High Court has stayed a provisional attachment notice issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for properties belonging to Kannada actress Harshavardhini Ranya alias Ranya Rao, 33, in connection with a money laundering case linked to alleged gold smuggling activities.
A single-judge bench of the high court stayed the attachment notice of the ED on September 10 in the wake of a plea filed by Ranya Rao on August 4 over the ED notice dated July 4.
“Learned Senior Counsel, referring to the order of provisional attachment, has demonstrated at this stage that the predicate offence is of the year 2025 and, therefore, the properties acquired by the petitioner prior to the trial of the scheduled offences cannot form the subject matter of such attachment,” Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum said in an interim order.
“Reliance is placed on the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Pavana Dibbur v. Directorate of Enforcement [2023 INFC 1029]. The apex court has categorically held that properties acquired prior to the commission of the scheduled offence cannot be included in a provisional attachment,” the court ruled.
“Prima facie, this Court finds that the impugned attachment, insofar as it covers properties acquired before the commission of the alleged predicate offence, is without jurisdiction. The matter, therefore, requires consideration in the light of the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Pavana Dibbur. Accordingly, the provisional attachment order dated 04.07.2025, issued by the respondent Directorate of Enforcement against the petitioner, is stayed until the next date of hearing,” the high court said.
After the issuance of the ED attachment order, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) also slapped a penalty notice to the extent of Rs 102 crore on the actress on September 2 under the Customs Act for allegedly being involved in gold smuggling activities.
The DRI, which arrested the actress in March 2025 at the Bengaluru International Airport, has served a notice for payment of penalty to the tune of Rs 102 crore to Ranya Rao as the cost for smuggling an equivalent amount of gold into India from Dubai in the 2024-2025 period.
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The actress was intercepted by the DRI on March 3 this year when she arrived at the Bengaluru International Airport from Dubai with a consignment of 14.2 kg of gold valued at Rs 12.56 crore strapped on her person – which she did not declare to customs authorities.
The investigations of the gold smuggling case involving the actress, who is the stepdaughter of a senior Karnataka police officer, revealed that she had gone 31 times to Dubai since 2024 and smuggled nearly 127 kg of gold valued at over Rs 100 crore, DRI sources said.
The arrest of Ranya Rao also led to the arrest of her Telugu actor friend Tarun Konduru alias Virat Konduru, 36, and two hawala dealers cum jewellers Sahil Jain, 27, and his uncle Bharat Jain, 45. On September 2, the DRI also issued notices for penalties amounting to Rs 56 crore each on Konduru, Sahil Jain and Bharat Jain.
The penalty amount is equivalent to the value of the gold found to have been smuggled by the accused in the course of investigations, DRI sources said. The penalty notice issued ahead of the prosecution of the smuggling case involves a provisional attachment of properties as per the Customs Act, a DRI official said.
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On April 22, 2025, the Government of India issued orders for detention of Ranya Rao, Konduru and Sahil Jain for a year under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act, 1974.
Writ petitions filed by family members of Ranya Rao and her associates for release from the COFEPOSA detention are pending in the Karnataka High Court.
Three weeks ago, the DRI questioned senior Karnataka IPS officer K Ramachandra Rao, who is the stepfather of Ranya Rao, regarding his knowledge of the gold smuggling racket in which the actress was arrested.
Ramachandra Rao, who was sent on compulsory leave in March this year by the Karnataka government following the arrest of his stepdaughter, was reinstated by the government on August 11 and appointed as the Director General of Police at the Directorate for Civil Rights Enforcement.
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The officer was questioned regarding his stepdaughter’s use of an official car that was provided to him when she returned from Dubai following alleged smuggling trips.