Bombay HC dismisses plea by Jiah Khan's mother to retrieve her BBM chats

Five years after Jiah Khan's apparent suicide, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday has dismissed an application filed by the late actor’s mother, Rabia. Following October 2013 where Rabia had first requested a CBI probe alleging that her daughter had been murdered, the application to retrieve private messages have been dismissed. The file seeks a request to retrieve messages exchanged between her daughter and her actor-boyfriend Sooraj Pancholi on Blackberry messenger.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Khan, best known for her performance in film "Nishabd" starring Amitabh Bachchan, was found hanging at her residence here on June 3, 2013. Her then boyfriend Pancholi was charged with abetting Khan's suicide which was later dismissed.

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The Mumbai police which had probed the case initially had recovered a three-page unsigned note (handwriting experts later confirmed that the note was written by Jiah) narrating Khan's "intimate relationship with Pancholi, physical abuse, and mental and physical torture at his hands" from her flat.

On Wednesday, Justice Mridula Bhatkar rejected Rabia's request, saying that the request was "not feasible under the law". A detailed order is likely to be made public by Thursday.

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A previous hearing of the CBI had told the court that the mobile phones of Khan and Pancholi which had been sent to a forensic laboratory could not retrieve the messages.

In January this year, the CBI filed a charge sheet against Pancholi, the son of actors Aditya Pancholi and Zareena Wahab, before a trial court, charging him under section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.