The Sushant Singh Rajput murder/suicide case has unleashed events that can't but be termed as unusual and odd.

Even though the famous Jessical Lal murder case, as well as the Nirbhaya murder case, witnessed a lot of media hype or circus as one may like to call it, the police and investigators didn't go to the court seeking restraints on media reporting as is being done by a few retired public servants of Maharashtra in the SSR case.

The action of retired Maharashtra officials stands in odd and unusual contrast to the stand of the CBI, which is assigned the responsibility of investigating into SSR death.

Without seeking or advising any restraint on media reporting in the SSR case, it said in a presser on  September 3 that "Certain media reports attributed to CBI investigation are speculative and not based on facts. It is reiterated that as a matter of Policy, CBI does not share details of the ongoing investigation. CBI spokesperson or any team member has not shared any details of the investigation with the media. The details being reported and attributed to CBI are not credible.

It is requested that media may please confirm details from CBI Spokesperson before quoting CBI."

However, as many as eight former senior police officers of Maharashtra of the ranks of Director and Additional Director General or Commissioner of Police filed a PIL petition in the Bombay High Court seeking to restrain the media debate and reporting on the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

This unusual and odd move by former cops followed hard on the heels of ace lawyer Harish Salve charging the Mumbai Police with making a complete mockery of the criminal investigation system. “We have made a complete mockery of criminal investigation system and we have only one agency to thank for this, Mumbai Police,” he said in a TV interview.

Saying he had no idea why an FIR was not registered in the SSR case, Salve said it is very odd not to have the time of death recorded.

It was but natural that such a scathing indictment from a seasoned lawyer got the goat of the Maharashtra government and its retired defenders who filed the PIL in the hope of containing the reputation-destroying revelations of the media.

And hence the petitioners' pleaded that some sections of the media have been maligning the image of the Mumbai Police in the SSR case.

Signatories to the PIL petition are former DGPs PS Pasricha, K Subramaniam, D Shivanandan, Sanjeev Dayal, Satish Chandra Mathur and former commissioners of Mumbai Police Mahesh N Singh, Dhananjay N Jadhav, and former ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi.

The plea states that a section of TV channels has resorted to biased reporting of the facts. "This has created an air of suspicion in the minds of the general public as to the facts of the case under investigation and also about the Mumbai Police, health services, and other support services of the state."

The petition calls upon the courts to frame rules/guidelines to be followed by the press while covering investigations that are sub-judice.

The Union of India, Press Council of India, News Broadcasters Association, News Broadcasting Standards Authority, and the Udhav Thackeray government are the respondents in the case.

The PIL was filed through advocate Sanjay Ashar of Crawford Bayley & Company.

Significantly, as soon as the petition was filed, the entire Shiv Sena government including the state home minister and its motormouths have gone ballistic against actress Kangana Ranaut who was the first to kick up the storm in the SSR case. Indulging in their habitual game of criminal intimidation, Shiv Sena hoodlums were on Friday seen indulging in below-contempt acts of disgrace.  

(By Rakesh Ranjan & M K Shukla)