Special court rejects CBI’s plea for further probe in Jiah Khan suicide case

CBI filed the plea seeking permission to send the dupatta purportedly used by Khan to end her life, and to retrieve deleted messages exchanged between the deceased and Pancholi through Blackberry messenger

A special CBI court on Thursday rejected the plea filed by the central agency for further investigation in Jiah Khan suicide abetment case against actor Suraj Pancholi.

Representational Image.

CBI filed the plea seeking permission to send the dupatta purportedly used by Khan to end her life, and to retrieve deleted messages exchanged between the deceased and Pancholi through Blackberry messenger.

CBI filed the application in December 2019 for permission to send the dupatta to Chandigarh Central Forensic Laboratory and the seized cellphones to the FBI in the USA to retrieve the phone messages.

The plea stated that the messages exchanged between deceased and accused immediately before the time of death, along with the GPS location, are relevant for further investigations in the case. So, it is required to sent both the cellphones to the Forensic Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigations, USA for examination and report through Letter Regratory Report (LR).

Pancholi’s lawyer Prashant Patil opposed the plea stating that the Bombay high court had rejected a similar plea by Khan’s mother Rabia Khan in 2017.

Rabia’s counsel Sairuchita Chowdhary argued that there were loopholes in the investigations carried out by both Juhu police and the CBI. There were eight points that need to be further investigated they had taken legal opinion of big law firm from London that also pointed towards the loopholes.

Pancholi was booked for abetment of suicide of Khan who died by suicide at her Juhu apartment on June 3, 2013. He was arrested on June 10, 2013, in the case. The trial of the case begin in March 2019.

Rabia has been claiming that her daughter had not killed herself and the investigating agency should probe if she was murdered. But, her plea was turned down by the high court and CBI too maintained that it was a case of suicide.