"If State Was Not In A Rush To Make Out A False Case, Preliminary Inquiry Would Have Been Conducted Before FIR"; Sushant's Sisters Tell Bombay High Court

Division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice MS Karnik are hearing the writ petition filed by the two sisters seeking quashing of FIR registered for offences punishable under Sections 420, 464, 465, 466, 468, 474, 306, 120 B and 34 of IPC read with sections 8 (1), 21, 22 A and 29 of NDPS Act.

The rejoinder states-

"The FIR has been lodged maliciously with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance and with a view to spite and harass the petitioners due to private and personal grudge and as such, the instant FIR is an abuse of process of law and the same is proven through Respondent No.2's own letter dated September 14, 2020. The Respondent No.2 in an attempt to harass the petitioners has concocted a false, inaccurate and malicious complaint based on unsubstantiated facts pertaining to June 8, 2020 which is contrary to the facts placed before the Supreme Court by Respondent No.2 herself, press statements released earlier and interviews given to several news channels."

Petitioners objected to Rhea Chakraborty's allegation that Sushant's brother-in-law OP Singh, who is an IPS officer and married to Neetu (Sushant's eldest sister), wanted to smear his image. The rejoinder states-

"The falsity in the concocted story made by Respondent No.2 (Rhea) is writ large from the fact that Respondent No.2 has falsely and incorrectly stated that OP Singh is the husband of petitioner number 2 (Meetu Singh) and has made unfounded, scurrilous and baseless allegation that Sushant informed Respondent No.2 that OP Singh and his family were up to something to smear his image. Such scurrilous and preposterous allegations are made by Respondent No.2 maliciously with an intent to tarnish the image of the petitioners and OP Singh and are as such defamatory in nature."

Rhea Chakraborty in her complaint, referred to WhatsApp messages between Sushant and his sister Priyanka Singh that are already in public domain dated June 8, wherein, Priyanka advised Sushant to take certain medications. She has alleged that the prescription by Dr.Tarun Kumar which was shared by Priyanka Singh with her brother is forged and fabricated.

Rhea has further alleged that the medicines prescribed in the said chat appear in the list of psychotropic substances under the NDPS Act.

Referring to Rhea Chakraborty's allegation, the petitioners have contended -

"There is not even a single allegations of complaint or reply of Respondent No.2 that any such alleged drug was actually administered to Sushant Singh Rajput. Further, the drugs that have sought to be allegedly given by Dr.Tarun Kumar are not banned drugs, in-fact a notification was issued in April 2020 which clearly permits the prescription of such medicine through telemedicine."

Finally, questioning the Mumbai police's hurry in registering the said FIR at the behest of actor Rhea Chakraborty, the petitioners have contended that if the Respondent No.1(State of Maharashtra) were not in such a rush to make out a false case and would have conducted a preliminary enquiry, the instant case could not have been registered.

The matter is listed for hearing today before the same bench.