CBI registers FIR in Disha Salian death after Bombay High Court order

The Central Bureau of Investigation registered an FIR on Monday in the death of Disha Salian, the celebrity manager who fell from a building in Malad, Mumbai, on 8 June 2020. The filing follows a 2 September order of the Bombay High Court, which directed the agency to take over the case and criticised the Mumbai Police for leaving it as an accidental death report for six years.

Salian was 28. She had worked briefly as manager for the actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Rajput was found dead at his Bandra home six days later, on 14 June 2020. The CBI later filed a closure report in Rajput's case stating he died by suicide. That report has not yet been heard by the competent court.

The High Court, while sending Salian's file to the CBI, told the agency to record a statement from her father, Satish Salian. It also said that no one should be named as an accused at that stage. Satish Salian recorded his statement last week. Speaking to ANI, he said he had listed names he wanted examined, including Aaditya Thackeray, Sooraj Pancholi, Dino Morea and bodyguards, and that investigators had written them down.

Multiple outlets on Monday described the FIR as listing those names, and others, for investigation rather than as a charge sheet. The lists published by The Times of India, ThePrint and IANS include Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, Rohan Roy, Dino Morea, Sooraj Pancholi, Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty, former police officer Sachin Vaze, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, DCP Vishal Thakur, former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, former home minister Anil Deshmukh, and several police and forensic officials. The document, as quoted in those reports, repeats the father's allegation of conspiracy and cover-up and says public servants should be examined for suppression or fabrication of records.

Those are allegations inside an FIR opened on a court order. They are not findings. None of the people named has been convicted in this matter. Rhea Chakraborty was questioned in the Rajput investigation and was cleared in the CBI closure report in that separate case.

The High Court had pointed to what it called glaring discrepancies in the original police work and said the handling of the file raised more questions than answers. Malvani police treated the death as accidental from the start. The CBI has already asked that station for its papers. The court also asked that a senior CBI officer supervise the new probe.

The sections reported in the FIR, again via those secondary accounts, include criminal conspiracy, murder, causing disappearance of evidence, and offences relating to public servants who disobey the law or frame incorrect records to shield someone. One report also cited gang rape among the sections invoked for investigation. The precise charge sheet, if one is filed, will narrow that list.

Six years passed between the fall and the FIR. The gap is the High Court's complaint. The CBI now has the papers, the father's statement and a court clock. Naming people for investigation is the first formal step. It is not the last. The agency will have to convert those names into evidence, or drop them, under a senior officer's watch and under a court that has already said the first investigation was not good enough.