Court summons Shashi Tharoor as accused in wife Sunanda Pushkar death case

Delhi Court takes cognizance of the charges of abetment of her suicide

Shashi Tharoor with Sunanda Pushkar. File

A Delhi court on Tuesday summoned Congress Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor as an accused in the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.

It said “there exist sufficient grounds” to proceed against him.

Pushkar was found dead in the suite of a five star hotel here on January 17, 2014.

Mr. Tharoor,

in a statement posted on his Twitter handle, said: “I would like to reiterate my position that I find the charges preposterous and baseless, the product of a malicious and vindictive campaign against myself.” He said he had fully cooperated with the investigating team.” He would continue to contest the charges.

Committing cruelty

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal directed him to appear before the court on July 7 at 10 a.m. “I have perused the chargesheet [police report under Section 173 of the Cr.PC] and documents filed along with it by the Special Investigation Team. On the basis of the police report, I take cognizance of the offence of abetment of suicide under Section 306 of the IPC of late Ms. Sunanda Pushkar and of committing cruelty upon her, punishable under Section 498A of the IPC, by Dr. Shashi Tharoor.”

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Mr. Vishal said there were sufficient grounds to proceed against him for offences under Sections 306 [abetment of suicide] and 498-A [husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty] of the IPC.

The court had on May 28 reserved order on taking cognisance of the charges. Additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava had argued that there was sufficient material on record to prove the charges against Mr. Tharoor of subjecting Pushkar to cruelty and thereby abetting her suicide.

Reading out from the chargesheet, the prosecutor informed the court that Pushkar had in an email to Mr. Tharoor expressed her wish to die. “I do not care about the tests. I have no will to live. All I pray for is death,” said the email. Mr. Shrivastava urged the court to take cognizance of the probe report and summon him as an accused.

The post mortem report had stated that there were injuries on the body, Mr. Shrivastava said. When the court asked the prosecutor about the cause of her death, he said it was due to poisoning, but added that the matter was under investigation.