In the eight-year-old case of Jiah Khan’s death by suicide, a special court has said it appears that the late actor’s mother Rabia Khan is deliberately trying to delay the trial. Actor Aditya Pancholi’s son Suraj Pancholi is facing charges of abetment of suicide in the case.
Rejecting the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Rabia’s pleas for further probe into the 2013 case, special CBI Judge AS Sayyad said, “..these applications indicate that the complainant does not want to proceed further with the trial; conduct as such appears deliberate and intentional, in order to delay and procrastinate the trial of this matter”.
The court further said it is important to note that the FIR was registered in 2013 and the matter is awaiting trial for the past eight years. “Applications before this court are not even maintainable, but it is clearly an abuse of the process of law,” the order stated.
Rabia Khan had sought that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the CBI, headed by the director or joint director of the agency, be formed to probe the case. The CBI had sought that the dupatta used by Jiah for death by suicide and hers and Pancholi’s Blackberry phones be sent for further forensic examination to retrieve their chats.
The court said the pleas by the CBI and Rabia Khan are nothing but a replica of earlier relief sought by the latter before the Bombay High Court in 2016, which had come to be rejected. It said the observations of the HC had put a full stop on the prayer of retrieving Blackberry Messenger chat history as well as further probe sought by Khan.
It remarked that the CBI had now taken a contrary stand, as against its stand before the HC through an affidavit it had filed then. Judge Sayyad said in his order that the pleas were filed after framing of charges in the case in 2018, and even after a witness was examined in March 2019. He said the courts have limited powers in directing further investigation before the framing of charges and before trial commences.
