Siya Goyal, family deny appointing Aashutosh Srivastava as legal counsel

2 min readPuneJun 29, 2026 11:01 PM IST

Police claim Siya Goyal (left) had earlier sabotaged the couple's planned pre-wedding shoot in Bali by stealing Ketan Agarwal's (right) passport. (File photo)

A controversy was created on Monday in the Ketan Agarwal murder case, with uncertainty swirling over who is legitimately defending prime accused Siya Goyal – even as the Vadgaon Maval court in Pune extended her police custody, along with that of co-accused Chetan Chaudhary, by four days until July 3. The confusion came to a head inside the courtroom itself, when two advocates in Vipul Dushing and Aashutosh Srivastava claimed to be representing Goyal – only for the accused herself to settle the confusion.

Before proceedings began at Vadgaon Maval court, Siya Goyal’s brother Sahil Goyal denied that advocate Aashutosh Srivastava had any mandate from the family.

“We have never engaged him, and he is not someone appointed by us. Whatever he is claiming, I have no knowledge of it,” Sahil told reporters gathered outside the court.

The confusion had been building since Sunday, when Srivastava began addressing the media in the capacity of Siya Goyal’s legal counsel. On Monday, both he and advocate Vipul Dushing appeared before court and argued on her behalf during a hearing that stretched over 40 minutes.

Dushing, however, said, “We are the ones representing Siya in this matter. The case is still at a very early stage, and there are no specific expectations at this point.”

The ambiguity persisted right through the opening of the hearing – until Siya Goyal herself at almost the end of the argument, informed the court that Dushing, and not Srivastava, was her chosen counsel.