In a big victory for actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s family, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected Rhea Chakraborty’s plea for transfer of probe from Bihar to Mumbai and directed the CBI to investigate. The court directed Mumbai Police to hand over all evidence collected so far to the CBI.
The apex court held that Bihar government was competent to transfer the case to CBI for investigation. Justice Hrishikesh Roy pointed out that if there was any other case relating to Sushant Rajput’s death, it must be transferred to the CBI for investigation.
The Supreme Court said, the jurisdiction of Mumbai Police was limited under Criminal Procedure Code and the ongoing probe being done by CBI was lawful.
The apex court held the FIR registered by Patna Police based on Sushant’s father K K Singh’s complaint as valid.
With this, the curtains have now been drawn over the legal tussle that was going on between Mumbai Police, Bihar Police and the CBI. The premier investigating agency will now be free to probe Sushant’s death, though more than two months have elapsed since then.
Let us all hope the investigation by CBI will now take a correct course. For the last two months, the slipshod manner in which the case was being handled by Mumbai Police raised several questions. One must praise Patna Police and the Bihar Police DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who sent their investigation team to Mumbai and changed the course of the probe. Mumbai Police and the Maharashtra government tried their best to prevent Bihar police from joining the investigation, and in one incident, they confined a senior IPS officer from Bihar under quarantine.
Too many personal attacks, some of them vicious, were made in the last two months during the course of the tussle between the two state police. On Tuesday, Rhea Chakraborty’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde released a statement in which he quoted Rhea alleging that Sushant’s sister Priyanka had tried to molest her in an inebriated state in April last year.
In the statement timed a day before the Supreme Court verdict, the lawyer Maneshinde stated: “Sushant had been calling his family, informing them of his decision to move out of Mumbai and requesting them to come to meet him. After several days of Sushant calling and crying over the phone, his sister Meetu agreed to come live with him on 8th of June 2020. Due to this development, Sushant requested Rhea to live with her parents for the time being.
“Rhea had been suffering from her own anxiety issues and often endured panic attacks. Sushant’s conduct also aggravated these conditions. Even though Rhea was desirous of seeing her family, she was not at all comfortable with leaving Sushant. The very same day, 8th June 2020, Rhea had arranged to have a therapy session of her own with Dr Susan Walker and requested Sushant if she could leave after the session. However, Sushant told her to leave immediately before his sister Meetu arrived. Thus Rhea reluctantly left and informed Sushant to let her or her brother know about anything he required or in case he needed to talk.”
This assertion is completely different from the fact that it was Rhea who had blocked Sushant’s calls on her phone after she left his flat after a quarrel.
The lawyer’s statement also states: “Rhea does not know and has never met Aaditya Thackeray till today. Neither has she ever spoken to him telephonically or otherwise. Though she has heard of him as a leader of the Shiv Sena. She knows and has met Dino Morea socially as he is her Senior in the Film Industry.”
Going through the charges and counter-charges, it is now clear that Rhea disliked Sushant’s family members, while the latter disliked Rhea for exerting dominance on the actor’s life and assets. Sushant’s family still stands by its charge that it was Rhea and her family who had funnelled out money from Sushant’s accounts to the tune of Rs 15 crore.
Each major character in this entire episode viewed the reasons behind Sushant’s death from its own angle. Yet, the mystery still remains whether Sushant committed suicide, or was forced to commit suicide, or was murdered.
It is now an established fact that Rhea and Sushant’s family members were at loggerheads and Sushant was caught in the crossfire. Even if we accept that Rhea and her family swindled money from Sushant’s account, the question arises: what could be the motive behind murdering him. The other question that remains is why Mumbai police, without going into the circumstances, declared it as a suicide. The question remains why Mumbai Police did not allow Bihar police to join the probe and refused to share evidence with their Bihar counterparts. It is a fact that nobody saw Sushant’s body hanging from the ceiling fan, and the body was found lying on the bed. The question remains, if Sushant’s career was on a successful course and he had good relations with his family members, why did he commit suicide?
People want answers to these vital questions. With the Supreme Court directing the CBI to probe, let us all hope that the matter will reach a logical conclusion soon and the mystery behind Sushant’s death will be revealed. In this entire case, the Mumbai Police’s image has surely taken a beating and it needs to regain its old prestige, soon.