Kissing row: SC stays proceedings against Shilpa

May 15: The Supreme Court today stayed the proceedings by a court in Rajasthan of kissing “expedition� of Bollywood actress Shipa shetty, and Hollywood actor Richard Gere.

Shetty moved the apex court on Monday seeking transfer of all cases regarding “the kissing episode� to Mumbai. While hearing the petition here, a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan issued notices to the parties on Shetty's petition seeking transfer of all the cases related to the controversy against her to Mumbai. All the directions given by the local court were stayed by the bench which included the restricting the actress from going overseas.

While seeking quashing of the criminal cases registered against her in the judicial magistrate courts of Jodhpur, Ghaziabad and Mundawar (Alwar) had also sought a stay on the proceedings until the transfer plea was decided.

The winner of celebrity big brother, which brought her on the international celebrity map, in her petition, claimed that the April 15, 2007 incident was wrongly projected by the media resulting in the filing of private complaints before the magistrates at Jodhpur, Mundawar and Ghaziabad by some local lawyers.

The “kissing episode� was beamed into the bed rooms of television viewers after Hollywood actor showered his beautiful counterpart with kisses during an AIDS awareness programme at the Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar in the capital last month. Hundreds of people throughout the country protested against the act, which they termed as obscene.