A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court is reportedly scheduled to hear the death case of Bollywood actor Jiah Khan, which has been lingering for the past eight years.
This comes after, sessions court that was conducting the trial of Jiah Khan's boyfriend, Suraj Pancholi, on charges of alleged abetment to her suicide, recommended that the case be transferred to a special CBI court.
“In this case, the inquiry is being conducted by the CBI/SCB, which has filed a supplementary charge sheet. Special courts are set up to hear matters that are solely investigated by the CBI, and a special judge is appointed to hear them. I don't have the authority to handle matters brought by the CBI. As a result, I believe it is necessary to transfer the current case to the CBI court,” the sessions court judge wrote in an order issued earlier this week.
The order was issued by the court, which was hearing a plea submitted by the CBI demanding further investigation because the central agency's issues are handled by separate courts. The matter will now be assigned to a CBI court by the court's principal judge.
Khan, a rising star in the film industry, was found dead in her Juhu home in June 2013. While her mother claims she was murdered, blaming Khan's last boyfriend, actor Sooraj Pancholi, a CBI probe in 2016 revealed she had committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling.
Khan's sister allegedly discovered a handwritten suicide note addressed to Pancholi in the days following her death. Rabia, her mother, had made the six-page memo public.
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“You kicked me in the face and never appreciated my love. You stole everything away from me, including my confidence and self-esteem. Whatever talent or ambition I had, you took it all away. You ruined my life... All I want to do now is go to sleep and never wake up again,” read the letter.
The case's trial began in March 2018 and in December of the same year, the CBI filed an application with the Sessions Court, stating that it intends to conduct further investigation and seeking that some articles be sent back for forensic analysis.
This includes sending a dupatta used by Khan to commit suicide to Chandigarh's Central Forensic Science Laboratory.
By sending their phones to the forensic unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, the agency hoped to recover BlackBerry Messenger messages exchanged between Khan and Pancholi before her death.
The CBI and Pancholi's lawyer, Prashant Patil, who opposed the application, both spoke before the sessions court. The special CBI court will most likely hear the case again.