Police approached Delhi High Court challenging a trial court’s 2021 order discharging Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in connection with his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death case.
The plea was allegedly not served on Tharoor and was "deliberately" sent to the wrong email address, according to Justice D K Sharma, who requested that police provide a copy of their petition to Tharoor's attorney.
The court also issued notice and sought response of Tharoor on an application by police seeking to condone the delay in filing the revision petition against the trial court’s August 18, 2021 order, as police approached the court after more than 15 months. The attorney for Tharoor informed the court that the court had issued numerous orders stating that no one should have access to the case's records during the course of the trial.
The court then directed that copies and documents relating to the case shall not be supplied to any other person except the parties and listed the matter for hearing on February 7, next year.
Tharoor was discharged in the case more than seven years after businesswoman Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel in the capital. The Delhi Police filed charges against him in accordance with Sections 498-A (husband or relative of husband subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetting suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
The prosecution had earlier alleged that Pushkar was subjected to mental cruelty which led to her bad health. It claimed that her death was not an accident and supported this claim with the postmortem report, which indicates that poisoning, either oral or intravenously, was the likely cause of death. Pushkar, a prominent face in Delhi circles, was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple had been staying in the hotel as Tharoor’s official bungalow was being renovated at the time.
