Panaji: Goa-based hotelier Gaurav Arya, who was recently summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput case on Sunday, claimed that he has never met the actor, but met Rhea Chakraborty in 2017.
"I have no connection with the case. I never met Sushant Singh Rajput. I met her (Rhea) in 2017," said Gaurav Arya at Goa Airport while leaving for Mumbai.
Mr Arya, the owner of The Tamarind Hotel in Goa's Anjuna, has been asked to appear before the ED before August 31.
The ED had on Friday put a notice at Gaurav Arya's hotel here asking him to appear before the agency before August 31. ED officials had pasted the notice on the hotel gate after they could not meet the hotelier.
The notice said that Mr Arya had to report to Enforcement Directorate Assistant Director Rajiv Kumar at 11 am on August 31 in connection to the case booked under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The agency had on July 31 registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in the case after a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by KK Singh, the late actor's father, against actor Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on July 28. In his complaint, KK Singh had alleged that around Rs 15 crore was withdrawn from Sushant Rajput's bank account in the last one year and transferred to "accounts that had no link with him".
Meanwhile, Rhea Chakraborty's associate Samuel Miranda and Siddharth Pithani (Mr Rajput's friend) arrived at the DRDO guest house in Mumbai where the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team probing the actor's death case is staying.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)