A special CBI court in Mumbai has recently said to pronounce its verdict on April 28 in the Bollywood actress Jiah Khan suicide case.
In this, her boyfriend and film star Sooraj Pancholi has been charged for abetment.
Special CBI Judge AS Sayyad on Thursday heard the final arguments of both sides and reserved his judgment in the case.
Jiah (25), an American citizen, was found dead at her Juhu home here on June 3, 2013. Later, Police arrested Sooraj on the basis of a 6-page letter, purportedly written by the Bollywood starlet, and booked him for “abetment to suicide”.
Then, the case was re-assigned to a special CBI court in 2021 after the sessions court said that it didn’t have the jurisdiction over the case as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had probed it.
Jiah’s mother Rabia Khan, a key prosecution witness in the case, told the court that she believed it to be a case of murder and not suicide.
Last year, the Bombay High Court dismissed her petition seeking a fresh investigation into the case. During her deposition, Rabia told the CBI court that Sooraj used to subject Jiah to physical and verbal abuse.
Rabia told the court that neither police nor the CBI collected any “legal evidence” to prove that her daughter committed suicide.
Prashant Patil, appearing for Suraj, stated that “We concluded the final arguments today (Thursday) on facts as well as on merits in the matter of Sooraj Pancholi versus CBI.”
Patil added, “We relied upon certain landmark judgments of the honorable Supreme Court as well as the high court to point out as to how the current case does not fall under the category of abetment to suicide. Now the matter is listed for passing of final judgment (on April 28).”
The actress, best known for her performance in the Hindi film ‘Nishabd’ starring Amitabh Bachchan, was found hanging at her residence by her mother.
Pancholi, the son of Bollywood couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, is currently out on bail in the case.
Further, the CBI alleged that the letter seized by the Mumbai police, which first probed the case on June 10, 2013, was written by Jiah Khan.
The note narrated Jiah Khan’s “intimate relationship, physical abuse, and mental and physical torture” allegedly at the hands of Pancholi which led her to commit suicide, the central agency stated.
