CBI Opens a Crime File on Disha Salian’s Death

The CBI registered FIR RC0502026S0006 on September 13, 2026, in the 2020 death of celebrity manager Disha Salian, 11 days after the Bombay High Court told the agency to take the case. Officials confirmed the filing on September 14. The paper is built on a statement her father, Satish Salian, recorded at the CBI’s Bandra-Kurla Complex office on September 11. It invokes gang rape, murder, conspiracy and the destruction of evidence. It names no accused.

That last clause is the whole legal fact. The same order that forced the FIR also said nobody is an accused merely because a name has surfaced. The public argument has already run past that line.

The CBI Holds Two Files That Point Opposite Ways

Salian, 28, died after a fall from Flat 1202 on the 12th floor of a Malad West high-rise on the intervening night of June 8 and 9, 2020. Malvani police logged Accidental Death Report 85/2020 at 3.07 a.m. on June 9. Sushant Singh Rajput, the actor she had briefly managed, was found dead at his Bandra home on June 14, 2020. Maharashtra later sent his death to the CBI. The agency filed a closure report in March 2025 calling it a simple case of suicide. As of September 14, 2026, that report still had not been heard by the court concerned.

The two deaths were yoked together in public from the first week. They now sit in opposite legal states inside the same agency. One file is a fresh crime investigation. The other is a suicide closure waiting for a judge.

TWO DEATHS, TWO CBI FILES

Satish Salian’s case, as recorded by the High Court, is that his daughter learned of objectionable acts by powerful people, passed that to Rajput, and was silenced. The CBI has already told a magistrate that Rajput’s death was suicide. It must now test a complaint that treats the two events as one conspiracy. Those two positions can both be investigated. They cannot both be treated as already proved.

What the Bombay High Court Ordered

Justices Sarang V. Kotwal and Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale reserved orders on August 28, 2026, in Criminal Writ Petition 1612 of 2025 and pronounced them on September 2. the September 2 High Court order did not hold that Salian was murdered, raped, or caught in a plot. It held that a six-year police inquiry under Section 174 of the old code was the wrong tool, and that the case needed a real investigation of a cognizable offence.

The investigation carried out by the police raises more questions than it answers. Therefore, investigation by CBI is necessary in this case.

Justice Sarang V. Kotwal, Bombay High Court, September 2, 2026

The operative directions were narrow. The CBI officer in charge of Mumbai was to appoint a senior investigator, record Satish Salian’s statement, register an FIR, and probe all aspects of the death under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Malvani police were to hand over every paper and article. If a cognizable offence is made out, a report goes to the competent court. If none is made out, a summary goes to that court, and the father may file a protest petition. Nobody is to be treated as an accused unless the investigating officer finds sufficient grounds on material collected in the probe.

The bench said it was not making observations against any individual, and that the CBI was not to be influenced by the court’s list of gaps. The FIR that followed is compliance with that order. It is not a verdict.

Six Years Inside an Accidental Death Report

Section 174 of the 1973 Code of Criminal Procedure lets police make a limited inquiry into the apparent cause of death after a suicide, accident, or suspicious dying. The Supreme Court has said the inquest is not the place to settle who assaulted whom. Mumbai Police kept Salian’s death inside that box from June 2020 until the High Court pulled it out.

The first 174 report was dated October 26, 2020. ACP Dilip Yadav of Malvani Zone accepted it on February 4, 2021, and the matter was closed. On December 11, 2023, the Maharashtra government asked for a review. The Commissioner of Police ordered a fresh 174 inquiry the next day, still on ADR 85/2020, under an additional commissioner and a deputy commissioner, with Malvani’s senior inspector on the ground. That second round produced another report in April 2026. The conclusion was still suicide. The legal form was still an accidental-death inquiry.

THE PAPER TRAIL BEFORE THE FIR

1. June 9, 2020: Malvani police register ADR 85/2020 at 3.07 a.m. Death time is recorded as 2.25 a.m.
2. June 10, 2020: A deputy commissioner of police tells the press the death is suicide.
3. June 11, 2020: The postmortem is conducted. Rajput’s postmortem, days later, is completed within seven hours of his death.
4. October 26, 2020, to February 4, 2021: The first 174 report is filed and accepted. The file is closed.
5. December 12, 2023: Mumbai Police reopen the same ADR under a special team, still under Section 174.
6. April 2026: A second 174 report again treats the death as suicide.
7. September 2, 2026: The High Court holds that two stages over about six years are not what Section 174 is for, and sends the case to the CBI.

In 2020, Satish Salian wrote to Mumbai Police that circulating claims of rape and murder were false. In 2025 he petitioned the High Court alleging gang rape, murder, and a cover-up, and named Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray among others. Malvani’s senior inspector Shailendra Nagarkar told the court in an affidavit that Salian jumped of her own volition, that she was drunk, that her fiancé ruled out foul play, and that the postmortem showed no sexual or physical assault. The High Court did not adopt either story. It said the 174 process itself had failed.

Judges Listed Gaps the Police Left Open

The bench walked through police compilations marked A to D and listed ten circumstances it called glaring. It said those points only decided whether an FIR was needed, and that the CBI must investigate every aspect, not only the list.

THE TEN CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE ORDER

• Late panchnama: Police were at the building soon after the incident, yet the spot panchnama ran from 9.40 a.m. to 9.45 a.m. on June 9, which the court called more than nine hours from the incident, with no explanation.
• ADR clock: The ADR at 3.07 a.m. referred to the parents having no suspicion, though Satish Salian reached the hospital only around 4 a.m.
• Police on camera: CCTV showed officers in Flat 1202 at 2.14 a.m. with Rohan Rai, the fiancé. The ADR and later reports did not say who they were or what they did.
• Blood at the fall: Two witnesses said she fell on her face and blood ran from her head. Police did not collect blood-stained soil and recorded no bleeding head injury beyond the chin.
• Injury pattern: The court found it hard to accept a 12th-floor fall onto the face leaving only a chin injury, with no fracture of the face, nose, or jaw, despite skull and rib fractures, and said experts must assess that.
• Less blood on clothes: An assistant chemical analyser wrote on September 15, 2020, that articles from such a fall should have held more blood.
• Undamaged door: Friends said the bedroom door was forced. The panchnama recorded no damage to the door or lock.
• Swab mismatch: The postmortem referred to anal and vaginal swabs. Envelopes at the forensic lab held slide smears. Doctors called it a clerical error. The court called it a glaring feature.
• Nude-body query: Police asked the postmortem doctor why the body was nude after they had already seized the clothes, identified by Rohan Rai.
• Phone and laptop: Both were seized on June 17, 2020, eight days later, from Rohan Rai’s custody, not during the June 9 panchnama of the flat.

Taken together, the bench said, those gaps required registration of an FIR so that whatever evidence remained was not lost to time. They were not findings of homicide.

Names Listed for Probe Are Not Accused

The FIR is the father’s statement converted into a first information report, as the court required. Nilesh Ojha, Satish Salian’s lawyer, said it was registered under Indian Penal Code Sections 376D, 302, 201, 217 and 218, read with 120B. Those are gang rape, murder, causing disappearance of evidence, public servants disobeying the law to save someone from punishment, public servants framing incorrect records, and criminal conspiracy. The accused column is unknown persons.

The narrative recites names “whose roles require investigation” in the alleged offences, in an alleged false suicide story, and in alleged suppression or fabrication of evidence. The list, as carried in the FIR text, includes Aaditya Thackeray, Rohan Rai, Dino Morea, Sooraj Pancholi, Aaditya Thackeray’s bodyguards, Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty, Sachin Vaze, Param Bir Singh, DCP Vishal Thakur, Uddhav Thackeray, Anil Deshmukh, and Malvani officers including API Ashok Devadhe and inspectors Jagdev Kalapad, Shailendra Nagarkar, Chimaji Adhav and Arjun Rajane. It also points at doctors, forensic staff, and building security. A CBI official said names would be added as accused only if the probe established involvement.

Satish Salian, after the BKC recording, said he had stated the facts as they were and listed the names, including Aaditya, Sooraj Pancholi, Dino Morea, and the bodyguards. On September 14 he said he had learnt that the FIR had been registered. Ojha told reporters the FIR was for gang rape, murder, and a cover-up. Those are the complainant’s allegations. They are now the CBI’s starting brief. They are not a court’s findings.

The FIR, as quoted from the complaint, also alleges “extraordinary contradictions” over Salian’s phone. Rohan Rai’s statement, it says, showed police taking the phone at about 9.40 a.m. on June 9, 2020, after which the handset stayed active. Police later said it was reopened after Rajput’s death to check a link. The complaint says seizure records were then altered. That claim, like the rest, is now for the CBI to test against the original devices and logs.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The FIR: RC0502026S0006, CBI Special Crimes II, New Delhi, registered September 13, 2026, on Satish Salian’s September 11 statement.
• The accused column: Unknown persons. The High Court forbade treating anyone as an accused without material from the probe.
• The investigator: Deputy Superintendent Puran Kumar is the investigating officer. A copy of the FIR was put before the High Court in a sealed cover on September 15, 2026.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Any charge: No person named in the FIR has been arrested, charge-sheeted, or found guilty in this case.
• The 2020 medical file: Mumbai Police still rely on a postmortem that recorded death from injuries in a fall and no sexual assault. The CBI has sought the original ADR, the postmortem, the case diary, and digital evidence from Malvani.
• A proven link to Rajput: The father and his lawyer say the two deaths are tied. The CBI’s March 2025 closure report on Rajput has not been withdrawn.

A name in that FIR is a lead the agency has been told to examine. Reading it as a conviction is the error the High Court tried to block in advance.

Sanjay Raut Calls the Naming a Conspiracy

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said on September 15, 2026, that putting the Thackerays in the FIR was a political conspiracy by Delhi to tarnish the family. Mumbai Police, he said, had already cleared Aaditya Thackeray of any connection. He argued that the High Court had ordered a CBI probe and had said not to name anyone, and that names were still being taken in public. He also tied the timing to a visit by the Union home minister. That is a political charge, not a finding on the death.

Actor Sooraj Pancholi, whose name is on the father’s list, put out a statement denying any meeting with Salian or with Aaditya Thackeray.

I have never met Late Disha Salian in my life, directly or indirectly. I have also never met Aditya Thackeray in my life.

Sooraj Pancholi, actor, public statement, September 15, 2026

He said a statement had already been recorded four or five years ago, that he had nothing to hide, and that he supported a fair CBI investigation. Rhea Chakraborty, named in the FIR as a person whose role requires investigation, is the same actor the CBI cleared in its March 2025 closure on Rajput. The new FIR does not reverse that closure. It opens a different file on a different death, on a different complaint, under a court order that still allows a clean summary if no offence is made out.

Why the Paper Trail Comes First

CBI investigators are expected to start with the Malvani papers, the original ADR, the postmortem, the case diary, and the digital record, then take statements from police who handled the first inquiry, from people at the June 2020 gathering in Flat 1202, from autopsy and forensic staff, and from the building’s guards. The High Court left the agency free to look at every aspect, not only the ten gaps. It also left open the ending in which the CBI files a summary and Satish Salian protests it.

Six years of an accidental-death inquiry did not produce an FIR. Eleven days after the High Court demanded one, the CBI had a crime number and a father’s list. The work that decides whether that list is evidence, or only grief and politics written onto a form, has not been done yet. The Rajput closure still waits in another courtroom for a judge to say whether that file is finished too.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a court order and a CBI first information report. It is informational only and is not a finding that any named person committed rape, murder, conspiracy, or any other offence. It does not constitute legal advice, and it should not be read as a substitute for advice from a qualified criminal lawyer on rights, defamation, or court procedure. Facts, FIR contents, and case status are drawn from the September 2, 2026, High Court order and from the FIR as described in September 2026; investigation outcomes can change those facts.