Ruling against Sooraj Pancholi’s plea, whose lawyer while seeking his judicial custody made several remarks about late actress Jiah Khan, the Andheri magistrate court on Tuesday remanded the accused to police custody till June 13.
Amid a pool of mediapersons, Juhu police officials brought Sooraj to the magistrate’s court on Tuesday afternoon. As the courtroom designated for the Juhu police was without a magistrate, Sooraj’s remand application was dealt with by a railway magistrate’s court.
While seeking his custody, the police said that they wanted to interrogate Sooraj regarding allegations of threat, assault and rape that were made against him by the actress in a note discovered three days after her suicide. Sooraj’s lawyers argued that Jiah was “possessive”, “obsessive”, “mentally depressed”, “older to him” and “expected a lot”. They also argued that the alleged note was not signed by the actress. Sooraj’s lawyer, Zamir Khan, further argued that the note, which formed the basis for seeking custody, did not name Sooraj nor was it signed by Jiah.
“The girl was obsessive and possessive. She was mentally depressed according to her doctor’s police statement. She was rejected for movies. He is just 21 and she was older to him. How can anyone expect so much out of a six- to eight-month relationship? There was no suicide note found,” the lawyer said, adding, “Take his passport and please grant him judicial custody. He is shaken and is not having his meals. Even one hour in the police custody can destroy his film career. The note that has been found does not have her signature or Sooraj’s name on it. The Section 306 (abetment of suicide) does not stand… how did he drive her to commit suicide? They have no concrete evidence. The handwriting experts have not checked the letter yet.” Investiga-ting official inspector Kal-pana Gadekar contradicting Mr Khan’s argument.