The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued its verdict on the highly publicised Sushant Singh Rajput case and ruled that the Central Bureau of Investigation will take over the investigations into the death of the Bollywood actor.
Hearing a plea filed by actress
Rhea Chakraborty, seeking a transfer of the FIR lodged by Rajput’s father KK Singh from Patna to Mumbai, the bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy delivered the judgement.
According to Times Now, the Supreme Court also pronounced its verdict on Chakraborty's plea, stating that the case will be transferred to Mumbai.
The announcement was followed by celebrations from fans, friends and Bollywood celebrities. Actors including former flame Ankita Lokhande, actors
Akshay Kumar,
Kangana Ranaut, Kriti Sanon,
Nana Patekar, Anupam Kher, Sanjana Sanghi and many others who had previously pushed for a CBI probe into the matter, took to social media to celebrate the verdict.
This ruling comes after the late actor’s family gave their consent to the Bihar Government to request the Centre for a CBI probe. A day later, the centre acknowledged the same and informed the apex court that it had approved a CBI enquiry.
During the hearing, the SC court probed Rhea’s counsel about their take on the independent central agency probe, pointing out that the actress herself demanded it in a social media post. To this, her team said that she had “no objection if the transfer of investigation to CBI is done in exercise of powers of the Supreme Court,” and only sought that the FIR be transferred to Mumbai citing the Bihar police had “no jurisdiction”.
The judgment comes in after weeks of the late actor’s family was joined by fans, friends and film stars in various social media campaigns demanding a CBI enquiry into the matter.
In his FIR lodged at Patna, KK Singh accused Rhea Chakraborty and five others of various offences including ‘abetment to suicide’.
The top court, which had previously reserved its judgement on August 11, was told by the Bihar government that a "political clout" prevented the Mumbai Police to register an FIR in the
Sushant Singh Rajput death case. The Maharashtra government, on the other hand, dismissed all such allegations and argued that Bihar lacked jurisdiction in the matter.
Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai apartment on June 14. The actor’s death was reported as an alleged suicide after autopsy reports ruled out any signs of foul-play and his toxicology reports ruled out the use of any poisonous substances in his system at the time of his death.
While the CBI was reportedly awaiting the verdict to formally begin the probe, the Mumbai Police has been investigating the matter for the past two months and recently had the Enforcement Directorate joining in to run an independent investigation into the financial aspect of the case.