Tunisha Sharma death: Bombay HC dismisses actor Sheezan Khan’s plea seeking quashing of FIR

A bench of Justices Ajey S Gadkari and Sharmila U Deshmukh passed a verdict on Khan’s plea on Friday.

Khan, through advocate Sharad Rai had argued that to “enter into a relationship and break up are normal facets of life, and if two persons in such a relationship terminate, then the mere fact that the other person commits suicide does not justify the offence registered under IPC section 306 (abetment of suicide) with its consequences of arrest and custody”.

Khan said there was nothing to suggest that “he had done any act with the specific criminal intention, of compelling Sharma to die by suicide”. He also said that Sharma was a mental health patient under medical care and “proximate to die by suicide”.

Since both of them were actors and belonged to different religions, there had been a lot of media attention, Khan said, adding that he was a “victim of several allegations being spread in media by persons who do not wish well for him, and want him to take the fall for what is otherwise a plain suicide case”.

However, the police had opposed Khan’s plea and submitted that even CCTV footage showed that Sharma was normal before Khan went into the room and that she looked “very disturbed” after he came out.

Police submitted that they had strong evidence of Khan’s involvement in abetting the suicide and that phones were seized from Khan and Sharma to support the same.

Khan had also filed a plea before a single-judge bench seeking to be released on bail in the case. On February 20 this year, he sought to withdraw the bail application with liberty to appropriate application before the Sessions Court as the chargesheet was filed in the case.

The high court had disposed of his bail plea as withdrawn and had clarified that it had not made observations on merits and Sessions Court may consider the plea on its own merits. The trial court had granted him bail in March this year.