TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee
Banerjee’s mother had recorded a statement with Bangur Nagar police on the basis of which the FIR was filed under sections 306, 323 and 506 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code in 2016. Singh challenged that order in the HC in 2023. His plea said the trial court had failed to consider that the couple was planning to wed by Dec 2016. Additional public prosecutor Sagar Agarkar opposed the plea, saying Banerjee died by suicide at her Mumbai residence around 4pm on April 1, 2016. Her mother said she learnt of Banerjee’s death that evening and lodged a complaint on April 5, 2016, alleging that Singh’s harassment had driven her daughter to suicide, the prosecution said.
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Singh’s lawyers also questioned the haste in registering an FIR when there was no suicide note and said that any evidence forcing the case to go forward to trial would be an abuse of process. Ponda argued that the sessions judge, who rejected Singh’s discharge plea on Aug 14, 2023, had “committed gross error in holding that the chargesheet was enough to show his involvement”. Counsel Tejas Mane, representing Banerjee’s mother, alleged that injuries on her body had been caused by Singh assaulting her and cited statements from people, including some of her actor friends, which he said suggested harassment. Singh’s petition said he “tried to save her life by giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and by taking her immediately to hospital, which can be seen by the statement of a witness…a neighbour…the first person to see” and a locksmith. The petition also claimed that the trial court was wrong in only relying on Banerjee’s mother’s statement that “due to his suspicious nature, he did not allow her to work in television post June 2015, which ultimately made her more frustrated and drove her towards committing suicide” when, in fact, Banerjee had “worked in one big TV reality show from July 2015 to Oct 2015” with Singh, showing she was not restricted from working.
Justice S G Dige relied on submissions by senior counsel Aabad Ponda and advocate Shreyans Mithare about recorded conversations between Singh and Banerjee to highlight that he had loved and cared for her. They argued that the last conversation showed Singh trying to dissuade Banerjee from taking any drastic step and expressing his love, which shows that there is no case of abetment. it was the abetment of suicide charge which was the bone of contention While offences of criminal intimidation and assault were also invoked. Download the TOI App.
Actor-producer Rahul Raj Singh TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee Actor-producer Rahul Raj Singh TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday discharged actor-producer Rahul Raj Singh in the decade-old case of alleged abetment of TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee ’s suicide.