More than a year after actor Jiah Khan was found hanging at her residence in the city, the Bombay High Court on Thursday transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), citing the need for a probe by an independent agency.
The court came down heavily on the CBI when it expressed its inability to handle the probe due to lack of adequate machinery and officers. “If CBI has the audacity to make such submissions, that there is no infrastructure, no officer, where will the citizens go?... One wonders where citizen of this country should go if the State machinery is found deficient in protecting its citizens,” a Division Bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and P.D. Kode said. They said they were “anguished and surprised” by the stand taken by the CBI.
Unfortunately, it could not transfer the probe to the FBI. The agency had agreed to provide help to Indian agencies in conducting investigation in the matter.
