Mumbai: A city-based special court on Monday, acting on a request of Rabia Khan — the mother of late actress Jiah Khan — asked the investigating officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to provide copies of certain documents and CCTV footage to her as well as to the defence lawyer. The CBI has probed the case involving the death of Jiah, whose body was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her Juhu house in 2013, and held that she had committed suicide.
Rabia’s lawyer, Swapnil Ambure, made an application before judge S.K.S. Razvi requesting her to direct the investigating officer to provide copy of call logs of Jiah’s mobile phone, status of ligature (the dupatta from which her body was found hanging) and CCTV footage of Hotel Novotel in Juhu. The judge directed the investigating officer to provide these things to Rabia after the defence did not take any objection on it.
Rabia has sought to know where is the ligature and whether it is part of the evidence or not. The CCTV footage of the hotel was sought because actor Suraj Pancholi, who is facing trial for driving Jiah to commit suicide, was present when she allegedly hanged herself.
“Though there is no provision in the law under which the complainant can address the court directly and seek such things, we do not want the trial to be delayed further and hence we did not take any objection,” said advocate Prashant Pati, Pancholi’s defence lawyer.
Initially the Juhu police was investigating this matter and in its chargesheet it said it was a case of suicide and booked Pancholi for abetment.
Unsatisfied with this, Jiah’s mother filed an appeal in the high court seeking a probe into the death by the CBI.
The high court allowed her application and transferred the probe to CBI, which in its chargesheet upheld the theory and said Jiah had hanged herself in her residential flat and Suraj was responsible for her extreme step.
Rabia was not satisfied with this too and hence filed another appeal in the high court seeking an investigation into Jiah’s death by a special investigating team (SIT) and this application is pending before the court and it is expected to be heard on January 31.
