A special court on September 16 rejected a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation, seeking to further probe the suicide case of actress Jiah Khan. The CBI had said in a plea to the court conducting the trial under charges of abetment to suicide against actor Sooraj Pancholi, that it wanted to send a dupatta used in the suicide, for analysis to the forensic laboratory in Chandigarh. The CBI’s plea also sought permission to send phones of Jiah and Sooraj to the forensic unit, FBI, USA, to recover the messages. The court also rejected a plea by Jiah’s actress-mother, Rabia Khan, who had pointed out to “defects” in the earlier investigation.
Jiah was found hanging at her Juhu (Bombay) flat on June 3, 2013, after which Sooraj was arrested and charged with abetment to suicide. He was later released on bail.
The CBI had first moved the plea in 2019. Sooraj’s lawyer had then sought its dismissal. The reply by Sooraj’s lawyer said that the CBI’s plea was in direct contempt of a 2017 Bombay high court order. It said that Jiah’s mother had moved a plea in the high court, making a similar plea, which was rejected in 2017. The reply further stated that in an affidavit filed by the CBI in response to Rabia’s plea, the investigating officer had submitted that messages by Sooraj and Jiah related to his meeting with a jewellery designer at a hotel and were not connected with the incident. It said, the plea was contradictory to the CBI’s earlier stand.