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In a major relief for actor Sooraj Pancholi, a CBI court has acquitted him in the Jiah Khan suicide case.
Jiah's boyfriend and actor Sooraj, who was charged with abetment of suicide, has been acquitted due to 'paucity of proof', according to reports.
The development comes almost a decade after the Bollywood actress and model was found dead at her home in Juhu on June3, 2013.
The court on Friday morning kept the order on hold till 12pm after the late actress's mother Rabia Khan requested time for some written submissions.
The police had arrested Sooraj, the son of actor couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, on the basis of a six-page letter, purportedly written by the Bollywood starlet, and booked him for abetment of suicide.
The note narrated the 25-year-old actress's "intimate relationship, physical abuse and mental and physical torture" allegedly at the hands of Sooraj which led her to commit suicide, the CBI, which took over the probe from the Mumbai Police said.
The case was reassigned to a special CBI court in 2021.
Sooraj is currently out on bail in the case. Jiah's mother Rabia, a key prosecution witness in the case, has maintained that she believed it to be a case of murder and not suicide.
Speaking to media on Thursday, Rabia said that her family spent 10 years trying to expose the truth.
The Bombay High Court had last year dismissed her petition seeking a fresh investigation into the case. Sooraj, in his final statement filed before the court, had claimed the investigation and chargesheet were false.
Jiah is best known for her performance in Nishabdh along with Amitabh Bachchan.