New Delhi/Mumbai, Sept 17: A legal notice has been issued regarding the death of Disha Salian, the former manager of the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Satish Salian, Disha’s father, has sought Rs.500 crore in damages from Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray and NCP (SP) leader and former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh.
The notice alleges that both leaders attempted to portray Satish Salian’s fight for justice as “politically motivated.”
Disha Salian, 28, died on June 8, 2020, after falling from a high-rise residential building in the Malad area of Mumbai. The police treated the incident as an accidental death and registered an ‘Accidental Death Report’ (ADR). Actor Sushant Singh Rajput passed away six days later, on June 14.
A few days later, Disha’s father—who had initially stated he had no suspicions regarding any foul play—approached the Bombay High Court, seeking the registration of an FIR and a fresh investigation into the matter. The petition had sought an investigation into allegations against several individuals, including Aditya Thackeray, Dino Morea, and Sooraj Pancholi.
Six years later, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken over the probe.
Defamation suit worth Rs.500 crore:
The Rs.500 crore legal notice served to Aditya Thackeray alleges that, beyond questioning Satish Salian’s motives, there was an attempt to portray his fight for justice as “politically motivated, malicious, and driven by an ulterior motive to tarnish [Thackeray’s] reputation.”
“The aforementioned allegations are false, baseless, irresponsible, and highly defamatory; they have been made without any credible evidence and solely to serve your malicious and improper motives. By portraying a grieving father—who was seeking a lawful investigation into the gang-rape and murder of his daughter—as someone misusing the judicial process for improper, malicious, and politically motivated reasons, these allegations cast a direct and serious slur on my client’s (Satish Salian’s) integrity, credibility, honesty, and bona fides,” the notice states. It is also alleged that Thackeray ‘misrepresented’ the situation by claiming the CBI had already investigated the Disha Salian case and given him a ‘clean chit’.
Thackeray reportedly stated that Salian was being ‘used as a tool’ to harass him; Anil Deshmukh had supported this statement.
According to the notice, on March 23, 2025, Anil Deshmukh stated that the Disha Salian case was a ‘conspiracy to tarnish Aditya Thackeray’s image’. It is alleged that this statement received widespread publicity and portrayed Satish Salian as a ‘dishonest, politically motivated, and malicious litigant who was abusing the criminal justice system’.