In a detailed order refusing to grant the pleas of the CBI and Jiah Khan’s mother for a further probe into Jiah’s alleged suicide, a special court last week said that the relief claimed was nothing but a replica of earlier pleas on issues already decided by the Bombay high court, indicating that the applications before it were a clear abuse of the process of law. The court added that the applications indicated that Jiah’s mother did not want to proceed further with the trial.
In a plea to the court in 2019, the CBI said that it wanted to send a dupatta used in the suicide, for analysis to the forensic laboratory in Chandigarh. The actress was found hanging at her flat at Juhu in Bombay, after which her boyfriend, Sooraj Pancholi, was arrested and charged with abetment to suicide. He was later released on bail. The CBI’s plea also sought permission to send the phones of Jiah and Sooraj to the forensic unit, the FBI in the US, to recover messages. Jiah’s mother, who pointed out “defects” in the earlier probe, sought further investigations into the cause of death by formulating a Special Investigation Team (SIT) presided over by the CBI director or joint director.
The case was transferred from the Bombay police to the CBI in 2014 following a HC order after Jiah’s mother moved the HC as she was dissatisfied with the police probe. She had claimed that her daughter’s death was a murder. After the HC ordered the CBI to conduct further investigations, it (CBI) concluded that it was a suicide. It was in 2015 that a chargesheet was submitted against Sooraj Pancholi for abetting Jiah’s suicide.
Sooraj’s lawyer opposed the pleas and submitted that the reliefs sought by the CBI and Rabia Khan were decided six times by courts. He said that the CBI’s plea was in direct contempt of a 2017 HC order.