This one has nothing to do with a film set or a red carpet, but it's the kind of story that shows up in the news cycle anyway, so here's what actually happened.

Eight people, including officials of the Rajasthan State Road Development Corporation and two contractors, have been arrested over alleged large-scale irregularities in constructing the Rajasthan High Court's main bench building in Jodhpur. The arrests came over two days this week, five on Monday and three more on Tuesday, according to the Free Press Journal.

The headline arrest is Virendra Garg, owner of Virendra Construction Company, the firm that actually built the structure. Garg had been on the run for close to two years, with a ₹50,000 reward on his head. Jodhpur Police Commissioner Anshuman Bhomia said Garg had fled Gurugram once the alleged irregularities surfaced, and he was finally picked up from Haridwar late Monday night.

Tuesday's arrests brought in Deepak Mittal, a former RSRDC official now posted as an XEN in Jaipur, and Ajay Kishan Mutha, who was the AEN on the project at the time. Police said a third person was also arrested in the same operation, though details on that individual are still coming in.

Monday's list included three more former RSRDC hands, Jitendra Sharma, Naveen Rai and Rajesh Purohit, along with Rameshwar Dayal of JK Company and Gopal Lal Khandelwal, whose firm handled the fire safety systems.

So what's the actual allegation? The High Court building was constructed starting in 2011 and handed over in 2019. Not long after it opened, problems started showing up, cracks in the central dome, trouble with the false ceilings, and reportedly more than one fire incident at the site. Studies by IIT Jodhpur and IIT Bombay are said to have flagged multiple deficiencies in the building and its systems.

A case was registered at Kudi police station in 2024 and a special investigation team was set up to dig into it. Police say that probe eventually pointed to the construction company, the fire-safety contractor and the RSRDC officials who were supposed to be overseeing the project. Twelve special teams and four cyber teams were put on the case, running searches across Rajasthan as well as in Gurugram, Delhi-NCR, Punjab and Haridwar.

All eight are expected to be produced for remand so investigators can question them further. Police are still going through project files and records to nail down how deep the alleged irregularities go, and they've indicated more arrests could follow as the case moves ahead. No court has ruled on guilt at this stage, these remain allegations under investigation.