The Bombay high court on February 22 quashed the lookout circulars (LOCs) issued by the CBI in 2020 against actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family in the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide abetment case. It observed that the LOCs did not mention any reason for their issuance, as was required by law. Instead, they only gave a gist of the FIR filed in the case.
The court pronounced its judgement in three separate quashing petitions filed by Rhea, her brother (Showik) and their parents (Lt. Col. (retd.) Indrajit Chakraborty and Sandhya). It said, there was nothing to show that the LOCs had been reviewed after 2020.
The abetment to suicide case was transferred to the CBI following a Supreme Court order of August 2020.
A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Manjusha Deshpande said that it was not even the CBI’s case that the petitioners, barring Rhea, were a flight risk. The Chakrabortys, they added, had participated and cooperated with the investigation. The court also observed that there was already a condition imposed on Rhea and Showik in an NDPS case against leaving the country without the court’s permission.
The court refused a petition by the CBI seeking a stay of its judgement.