The Bombay High Court on September 30 discharged actor-producer Rahul Raj Singh in the decade-old case over the alleged abetment of TV actor Pratyusha Banerjee’s suicide.

A single bench of Justice S.G. Dige accepted Singh’s challenge to the sessions court’s refusal to discharge him. Singh will not face trial unless the order is challenged.

Banerjee, known for playing Anandi in Balika Vadhu, died by suicide at her rented home in Goregaon, Mumbai, on April 1, 2016. She was 24.

The court relied on the couple’s last recorded conversation. Singh’s lawyers, Aabad Ponda and Shreyansh Mithare, argued it showed him trying to dissuade her from any drastic step.

The defence also questioned the haste in registering the FIR in 2016 without a suicide note. Allowing the trial would amount to an abuse of process, they argued.

Singh was booked under provisions for abetment of suicide, assault and criminal intimidation. The Dindoshi sessions court had rejected his discharge plea in 2023.