Actor Jiah Khan suicide case will now be heard by a special CBI court. The sessions court, which was conducting trial against Khan’s boyfriend actor Suraj Pancholi on charges of alleged abetment, has said that the trial should be transferred to a special CBI court. “In the present matter, investigation is carried out by CBI/SCB (which) filed a supplementary chargesheet. The special courts are established for trial of cases exclusively investigated by CBI and a special judge is appointed to deal with said cases. I do not have the power to deal with cases filed by the CBI. Therefore, in my view it is necessary to transfer the present case to CBI court,” the sessions court judge said in the order earlier this week.
Advocate Prashant Patil, who represents Sooraj in the trial, says, “The order granted by the Hon’ble Sessions Court to transfer the said case to Special CBI Court is a welcome move for my client, Sooraj Pancholi. We have been moving applications since the beginning of the trial to expedite the case and decide the matter on its merits within six months. Our applications were allowed. Even then, the trial proceedings were delayed. We then moved a Writ Petition before the Hon’ble Bombay High Court for expediting the trial and concluding it within six months. The trial in the case began in March 2019. In December 2019, the CBI made an application before the sessions court that it plans to conduct further probe and sought to send certain articles for forensic examination again. This included sending a dupatta allegedly used by Khan to die by suicide to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Chandigarh. The agency also sought to retrieve BlackBerry Messenger messages exchanged between Khan and Pancholi before her death by sending their phones to the forensic unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US. Sooraj Pancholi and his family are relieved that the trial in the Jiah Khan case, in which the actor is an accused, has been moved to the CBI Court.
“We wanted this trial to be expedited,” says actress Zarina Wahab, Sooraj’s mother. She adds, “Eight-nine years is a very long time. My son has suffered through this period and this was not fair to him. My husband and I and all our family members had faith in God and the judiciary. We all believe that if my son is guilty, he should be penalised, but if he is not, he must also get his clean chit from the Court. He should have the right to move on. I feel bad for my baccha for what he has endured. I also feel the pain of the mother who lost her daughter. Most parts of the last 10 years were terrible for us. Each time I saw Sooraj’s face, I knew what he was feeling. He and I would avoid looking at each other because we could both could read each other’s minds. We would both get worried and were unable to hide our feelings. I have faith in our judiciary. I am happy the trial will get expedited. I am happy that we will all find closure. We wanted this to happen. It’s Sooraj’s life, his career at stake. I just wish that Sooraj keeps his composure and stays as strong as he has been all along. I want to see him happy and relaxed, which has not happened in years.”