The Supreme Court on October 25 dismissed the CBI’s plea against the Bombay high court’s decision to quash the lookout circulars (LOCs) against actress Rhea Chakraborty and her brother and parents in actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case. The apex court slammed the agency and said, the appeal was frivolous and seemed to have been filed only because a high-profile person was involved. A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan asked the state counsel not to file such an unnecessary petition.
The LOCs had been issued by immigration authorities on the request of the CBI which has been probing the death of Sushant on a complaint made by his family. The Bombay high court quashed the LOCs in February this year after finding that the agency had failed to spell out its reasons for the issuance of these LOCs.
Rhea had been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in September 2020 after Sushant’s death. She was granted bail by the high court.
Quashing the LOCs, the high court bench said that Rhea and her family members had cooperated with the CBI in its investigation, by appearing before the agency whenever summoned, without attempting to evade it. “An LOC is a coercive measure to make the person surrender and as such interferes with the person’s right of personal liberty and free movement and curtails the fundamental right of an individual to travel, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the Bombay high court had said. The bench added that the reason for issuing the LOC — the apprehension of the agency — needed to be spelt out.
