Dr. Kislay Panday, solicitor Supreme Court of India

Bihar Police has no territorial jurisdiction to investigate the case of Sushant Singh Rajput

That Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide was tragic and most unexpected is now behind us and what we now witnessing is a dogfight between Bollywood which seems to have split down the middle. While accusations and counter-accusations continue on the cause and circumstances that led to the young and promising rising star in the Industry, no one for sure knows what exactly led to the suicide.

And we are not talking about the layman who makes his opinion about a high profile case based on media reports. The Police itself is equally clueless even after six weeks all it has done is to question various people in the industry who had anything to do with Sushant. So every other day director or co-actor is walking into the Mumbai police question room and comes out leaving the police more bewildered than before.

Sushant after his death has become a subject of browbeating and mudslinging amongst the many known people who seem to be using his death as a tool to settle scores. Now if that was not enough it has now become political with Bihar and Maharashtra politics coming into the play. Let’s not forget elections are round the corner and suicide of a Bihari Migrant is an emotional issue. With Bihar police now being asked to investigate the case is unprecedented and defies logic. Nothing happened in Bihar except that Sushant was born there and his father lives there.

He lived in Mumbai, worked in Mumbai, had friends and foes in Mumbai and he died in Mumbai. How Bihar police get the case is beyond reason. Dr. Kislay Panday who has been studying this case says, “Bihar Police has no territorial jurisdiction to investigate the case of Sushant Singh Rajput Even if, the allegations by the Father of Late Sushant Singh Rajput are considered on face value; no part of the alleged offenses have taken place within the local jurisdiction of Patna Police and as such in the eyes of law no FIR could have been registered on the complainant of the FIR of the deceased at Patna. The steps taken by Bihar police are absolutely against the established principles of Criminal Jurisprudence.”

Equally astonishing is the way the ED came into play and slapped a money laundering case against Rhea Chakraborty. Suddenly the case of suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput has become an economic offense case!

A twist in the story came just a couple of days back when Sushant’s father who was silent for 40 odd days named Rhea Chakraborty, Sushant’s estranged girlfriend and till recently was in a live-in with Sushant to driving him to commit suicide. This suddenly changed the course of the investigations which were so far was based upon the premise that something was really wrong in the Sushant’s career and that a few high and mighty in the Bollywood wanted him finished. They blocked his films and saw to it that he sees no release of his films. They goaded and persuaded the investors, distributors, and filmmakers to treat Sushant as a filmy pariah which eventually led him no choice and noosed himself.

That might have made a few people in the film industry very nervous and uneasy and perhaps needed a deflection that came with the Sushant’s father’s scathing attack on Rhea. It is not to exonerate anybody but the course of events is indeed interesting. Rhea had left Sushant many days before he committed suicide and wasn’t even talking to him. Secondly, Why was the family not able to make a contact with Sushant perhaps he did not want to talk to them. Sushant was on anti-depression drugs and was in good physical and mental health only a few months back. Equally hilarious is the proposition that Rhea was blackmailing the deceased by saying that she will expose him that he was mentally ill. So many of the celebs are on drugs that we can count of fingers, pushes, and pulls of stardom often play havoc on individuals and taking psychiatric treatment is very normal in Bollywood than an outsider would assume.

So now the case of Suicide of Sushant Singh has lost its course and would be decided not on the merits of the case, but how it suits the interests of certain people in power that be. Rhea Chakrobarty is a black sheep or scapegoat we will never know. Pity!