The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its order on a petition filed by actor Rhea Chakraborty to transfer the case filed against her in connection with Sushant Singh Rajput’s death from Patna to Mumbai, Bar and Bench reported. Rajput’s father KK Singh had filed an FIR against Chakraborty last month, accusing her of driving his son to suicide.
The top court directed all parties in the case to submit their written arguments by Wednesday.
At the hearing, the Bihar government told the Supreme Court that the first information report filed in Patna was the only case in actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and accused the Mumbai police of not registering any case even after it questioned several people, according to Live Law.
Rajput was found dead in his apartment in Mumbai on June 14, in what the Mumbai Police said was a case of suicide.
Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Bihar government, told the top court that the Patna police’s FIR in the case was legal and valid and devoid of any political interference. “There is political pressure in Maharashtra and not Bihar,” Maninder Singh told the bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy. “The Mumbai police examined 56 witnesses. I am told that the interim report of post-mortem [examination] came on June 17 and the final report on June 25. Maharashtra did not register an FIR.”
The Bihar government’s lawyer added that the matter of jurisdiction in the case “cannot be raised at the state of initial probe”, NDTV reported. “There cannot be transfer of a case until investigation is over and final report is prepared.”
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Maharashtra government, contested Bihar’s accusations, saying that the Mumbai police did not file a case in Rajput’s death because there had been no complaint. “There is an attempt to give Maharashtra a bad name,” he said, according to NDTV. “Bihar is doing this because of the elections. After the election, you will not hear of this case.” Singhvi also said that if the Bihar government’s version was accepted, the “principles of federalism will take a hit”.
Chakraborty’s lawyer Shyam Diwan, meanwhile, told the court that the FIR filed by Rajput’s father against her had no connection with any offence in Patna. He also alleged that the case was politically motivated and that there was a delay of 38 days by the Bihar police in filing the FIR. He also opposed the transfer of the probe into Rajput’s death to the Central Bureau of Investigation and said that his client was being subjected to an unfair media trial.
The CBI took over the inquiry into Rajput’s death last week as the Centre accepted the Bihar government’s recommendation to involve the investigation agency in the case.
The Mumbai and Patna police have repeatedly traded allegations in the case. Their discord intensified over the quarantining of Indian Police Service officer Vinay Tiwari, who was sent to Mumbai from Bihar to investigate Rajput’s death.
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