Can't retrieve Sooraj, Jiah's messages: CBI to Rabiya

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday filed its reply on late Bollywood actress Jiah Khan’s mother Rabiya Khan’s application, and told the court that it was not possible to retrieve BlackBerry Messenger or BBM messages that were exchanged between Jiah and her then boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi before Jiah committed suicide at her Juhu flat in June 2013.

Rabiya had sought retrieval of BBM messages exchanged between her daughter and Sooraj, and taking on record the opinion of a private forensic expert who claimed that Jiah’s death could have been a murder and not a suicide.

Judge Shayeda Razvi on Monday told Rabiya that she could not make such an application because she did not have locus, however the state government could file such an application. When the judge sought to know the state-appointed special public prosecutor Dinesh Tiwari’s stand, he replied that the court should consider Rabiya’s application, as filed by the public prosecutor.

After this, CBI counsel Rajendra Bhatnagar filed a reply before the court which claimed that CBI had already filed its supplementary charge sheet stating that this was not a case of murder but suicide. According to the reply, the CBI had forwarded the mobile phone of the accused, Sooraj, to the forensic science laboratory (FSL) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, to retrieve BBM messages sent by the accused to the deceased before her body was found at her home. However, experts in FSL could not retrieve the deleted messages.

The CBI said that the high court in its order earlier this year had already discussed the report of the private forensic expert, and the applicant had not produced any other fresh documents during the investigation.

The court has now fixed June 9 for hearing arguments of all concerned in the case.