The Supreme Court on Monday recorded solicitor-general Tushar Mehta’s assurance that the CBI would be handed over the probe into the death of Twisha Sharma, who was found hanging at her marital home in Bhopal on May 12 following alleged dowry torture.

The apex court urged the families of the victim and the accused to refrain from making unwanted statements. It also requested the media and the general public not to comment on the issue.

Twisha, 33, died under suspicious circumstances, with her family alleging dowry harassment and efforts to influence the probe and trial by her lawyer husband Samarth Singh and his mother, a former district judge. The couple got married in December last year.

Samarth and his mother have both denied allegations of foul play.

Samarth is under police custody, and his mother has secured an anticipatory bail.

Following allegations of “institutional bias” stemming from the accused’s legal background, the Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognisance of the incident to send out the message that the investigation would be taken to its “logical conclusion”.

During the hearing on Monday, Mehta told the bench: “It is better to have a divorced daughter at home than to have a dead one.”

Mehta, who was appearing for the Madhya Pradesh government, accused Samarth’s mother of not cooperating with the police after securing anticipatory bail and making statements against her deceased daughter-in-law on TV channels.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the victim’s family, sought a CBI probe into the incident, saying that there was a three-day delay in police filing the FIR and destruction of evidence by the accused persons.

Sidharth Dave, appearing for the accused mother and son, denied the allegations of destruction of evidence and foul play as baseless.

The bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, in its order, noted that Twisha’s family members had questioned the response of the police and a “narrative was also created that a fair investigation was being denied on account of the involvement of the judiciary. It is in this backdrop that these suo motu proceedings have been initiated by us”.

The bench recalled that the Madhya Pradesh High Court had on May 22 directed that a second post-mortem examination was necessary to clear all doubts and to bolster the confidence of a common person in the entire process. The second autopsy was conducted in Bhopal by a team of doctors from AIIMS, Delhi. The body was cremated on Sunday.

“The only issue as of now that survives for consideration is the consent and recommendations made by the state of Madhya Pradesh seeking to hand over the investigation to the CBI,” the bench said.

“Since the state government has already recommended an investigation by the CBI, the learned solicitor-general has assured us that he will take up the matter with the authorities so as to ensure that the CBI immediately takes over the investigation and makes an endeavour to complete the same promptly,” it added.

“We would like to impress upon the family members of the victim, as well as the accused person(s), that instead of making statements in public or before media platforms, they should get their version recorded before the investigating agency so that no prejudice or adverse impact is caused to the ongoing investigation,” the bench said.