Prafulla Marpakwar, Swati Deshpande & Madan Kumar | TNN (THE TIMES OF INDIA; August 5, 2020)

Mumbai/Patna: With Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar pushing for a CBI probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, the state’s home department made a formal request to the Centre on Tuesday seeking an investigation into the FIR lodged by the late actor’s father K K Singh at Rajiv Nagar police station in Patna.

The CM told mediapersons, “Everybody has been demanding a CBI probe in the actor’s case. The matter was also raised in the Bihar assembly on Monday and some MLAs demanded a CBI probe. After seeing the lack of cooperation from Mumbai police in investigation by Patna police, I am also of the view that CBI should conduct an inquiry in the case.” Nitish had criticised the “forced quarantining” of a Bihar IPS officer in Mumbai, hours after he landed in the city to pursue a probe into the Sushant case.

Bihar’s move evoked strong reactions from lawyer Satish Maneshinde who is the lawyer for Rhea Chakraborty, Sushant’s girl friend and an accused in the abetment to suicide case registered by Patna police. “There cannot be transfer of a case to CBI as the case has no legal basis for Bihar to get involved,’’ he said. “At best it would be a 'Zero FIR' in Patna and transferable to Mumbai Police.’’

Bihar’s demand for a CBI probe came a day before a hearing in Supreme Court on Rhea Chakraborty’s plea, seeking transfer of the case to Mumbai where a probe is already on. “One case is pending before the Supreme Court, while a public interest litigation has been filed before Bombay High Court. I am told both cases are coming up for admission/hearing on Wednesday. Under such circumstances, it will be appropriate to wait for the outcome,’’ said Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh.

Regarding the plea for transferring the case to CBI, senior crime counsel Amit Desai said, “The law is clear that every matter of death doesn’t require a CBI investigation, the guidelines of when a CBI must investigate are fairly well settled and include inter-state cases, complex cases, and where large public interest involved.”

He added, “Section 174 CrPC enquiry does empower the police in an enquiry into the death to look into all aspects including that of abetment to the suicide, which the Mumbai police are doing as it is the place of offence.’’

Former Bombay high court judge Justice V M Kanade said, “In the present case, the situation is peculiar in the sense that the Mumbai police is entitled to probe into the cause of death under section 174 of CrPC which it is doing. At this stage, the recommendation or consent for transfer for CBI appears to be premature since no report has been given so far by the Mumbai police on its inquiry.’ However, senior counsel Niteen Pradhan said a CBI probe may be justified as it would be prudent to task one agency with the investigation. “Also the Mumbai police has shown inordinate delay in concluding its probe into its cause of death,” he said.
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Two PILs filed in SC for CBI probe

Two public interest litigations (PILs) have been filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking a CBI probe into Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. While one PIL has been filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ajay Agrawal, the other has been filed by a Mumbai-based law student, Dwivendra Devtadeen Dubey.

The PIL by Agrawal, who has been pursuing the politically sensitive Bofors scam case in apex court, seeks direction to CBI to take up investigation into Rajput’s death. The law student has sought the transfer of the FIR, lodged by the actor’s father KK Singh in Patna, either to the CBI or the NIA.

Significantly, a bench headed by Chief Justice S Bobde had, on July 30, junked a similar PIL seeking transfer of probe from Mumbai police to the CBI. PTI
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Grant Thornton is forensic auditor

Mumbai: City police on Tuesday appointed Grant Thornton — a network of independent assurance, tax and advisory firms — as the forensic auditor to examine Sushant Singh Rajput’s bank accounts for misappropriation of funds or fraudulent transactions. The auditor will go through Sushant’s banking transactions during his entire acting career starting with the TV serial ‘Pavitra Rishta’ in 2009. TNN