The Supreme Court on Monday asked a petitioner seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the death of Disha Salian, the manager of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, to approach the Bombay High Court, Bar and Bench reported.

A bench led by Chief Justice SA Bobde told the petitioner that the Bombay High Court was hearing several similar cases and was well acquainted with the case as well as the officers and evidence in it. The bench added that the petitioner was free to approach the Supreme Court if it was not satisfied by the High Court’s order.

Salian allegedly died by suicide on June 8 after falling off the 14th floor of her Mumbai’s residence. Later on June 14, Rajput was found dead in his residence.

The petitioner, advocate Puneet Dhanda, claimed that both Rajput and Salian died under mysterious circumstances. They both were at the “peak of their successful professional career and as per the statements of witnesses they both were upset as some projects of them were sabotaged and taken back from them and some of the projects were not working out and many were getting cancelled or delayed”, the plea said.

The plea relied on two alleged facts to demand the inquiry. First, the Mumbai Police had told the Bihar Police that the case records of Salian’s death were mistakenly deleted. The plea claimed that the Mumbai Police also did not give its Bihar counterpart the laptop where information related to Salian’s death was stored.

Second, the plea said that a news article “clearly” revealed the involvement of many celebrities in Salian’s and Rajput’s death. “The report stated that a star kid [who himself has done two movies] called Sushant’s ex-manager Ms Disha Salian to his penthouse for partying.” it said. “Present in the party were few political personalities as well as some celebrities. It is believed that Ms Disha Salian was raped or molested in this party and immediately after the party Disha died under mysterious circumstances.”

Six days after Salian’s death, Rajput was found dead in his apartment in Bandra, in what the Mumbai Police said was a case of suicide. The CBI had taken over the inquiry from the Bihar Police after an abetment to suicide case filed by the actor’s father KK Singh in Patna against actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family.

After a drug angle emerged in the case, the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik Chakraborty for their alleged role in procuring drugs for Rajput. On October 7, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Chakraborty on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh.

On October 3, Sudhir Gupta, who led the All India Institute of Medical Sciences panel re-evaluating Sushant Singh Rajput’s autopsy reports, had confirmed that the actor died by suicide as he completely ruled out all theories of murder. However, the family of Sushant Singh Rajput on October 7 wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation, lodging their strong protest against the findings of the AIIMS panel. The family, through its lawyer Vikas Singh, asked the investigative agency to form a fresh medical board to once again review the “dubious” autopsy reports.