CBI Takes Up Sushant Death Case: Has No Track Record Of Convictions In Suicide Abetment Cases

New Delhi: India’s Central Bureau Of Investigation (CBI) boasts a conviction rate of 65-70 percent (among the best in investigating agencies in the world) but surprisingly, not a single case of abetment-to-suicide handled by it has seen a logical conclusion, reported India Today.

Even as the agency gears up to probe Rhea Chakraborty in late actor Sushant Rajput’s controversial death case, India Today reports that in none of the handful of such cases it has taken up so far, the CBI could prove that the suspect(s) drove the deceased to suicide.

Jiah Khan’s case

In the Jiah Khan death case being investigated by the agency, the CBI filed a charge sheet but nothing much has moved in the trial since 2017, India Today reported.

Sooraj Pancholi is charged for abetting Jiah’s suicide.

Why is CBI’s record so dismal?

“In any case under Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to suicide), the accused intention is more important than and what the deceased felt. Now proving the intention of the accused is extremely difficult in a condition when the other person is not alive to corroborate what the accused is saying. In any such case, conviction can be achieved only if it can be proved that the suicide committed by the deceased was due to direct encouragement or incitement of the accused and that the departed person was left with no other option,” an officer who has investigated a similar case told India Today.

Quoting sources, India Today reported that the mental health of the dead person plays an important part in the investigation. If the mental health of the deceased was not good at the time of committing suicide, then it goes in favour of the accused.

Lone successful case

Fourteen-year-old budding tennis player Ruchika Girhotra’s suicide case was the only case in which the CBI made a headway. Although the victim committed suicide and the CBI filed a charge sheet and FIR against Inspector General of the Haryana Police, SPS Rathore Rathore, the court convicted him of molesting the victim but not of abetting her to suicide, India Today reported.