Delhi Court reserves order on framing of charges against Shashi Tharoor in Sunanda Pushkar death case

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Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar
Litigation News
Delhi Court reserves order on framing of charges against Shashi Tharoor in Sunanda Pushkar death case
By
Aditi Singh
12th Apr, 2021 at 6:18 PM
A Delhi Court on Monday reserved order on framing of charges against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in the criminal case concerning the death of his wife, late Sunanda Pushkar (State vs Shashi Tharoor).

The Delhi Police pressed for framing of charges under Section 498A (cruelty) and 306 (abetment to suicide) or alternatively under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

After the Special Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava and Tharoor’s counsel Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa concluded their submissions, Geetanjali Goel, Special Judge, Rouse Avenue listed the matter for order on April 29.

In case the order is not prepared by then, a short date will be given, she added.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered by the Delhi Police after Pushkar was found dead in her suite at a five-star hotel situated in New Delhi in January 2014.

As per the Prosecution, Pushkar was a completely healthy person and the cause of her death was poisoning due to the consumption of Alprazolam.

Pushkar, according to the Prosecution, was subjected to mental cruelty by her husband on account of the several controversies surrounding his alleged extramarital relationship.

Srivastava on Monday took the court through a conversation between the husband-wife duo to submit that Tharoor “mentally abused” Pushkar “through neglect”.

He further pointed out that Pushkar had accused Tharoor of “destroying her faith” and “abandoning her”.

As far as the framing of alternative charge under Section 302 IPC was concerned, Srivastava stated that the medical experts had “not ruled out” the possibility of Alprazolam being injected to Pushkar while saying that it was orally administered.

While Srivastava argued that the Prosecution was “doing its best” and the truth would come out “when person is in the dock”, Judge Goel questioned if prosecution can be based on “if, may, but”.

“Something has to be established..they are saying may have been injected. Can prosecution be based on supposition?” she asked

The Court also noted that the quantity of the drug or even its tentative quantity which could have caused poisoning or its impact on age of the consumer had not come on record.

In response, the Investigating Officer explained that while there was a study on rats, there was no study on humans to determine the quantity of drug that would cause death.

The Prosecution urged the Court to frame charges against Tharoor based on the prima facie existence of a case for trial in terms of Section 221 of CrPC.

Seniro Advocate Pahwa, the other hand, reiterated that there has been no definite opinion on Pushkar’s cause of death.

He also pointed out that as per the CFSL report, which was not being relied upon by the Prosecution, the drug in question was not found in Pushkar’s blood.

“Prosecutor can’t replace evidence with opinion,” Pahwa said as he argued that “injectable theory was a figment of imagination” and could not be the basis to frame charge under Section 302 IPC.

He further argued that evidence to suggest mental cruelty was “innocuous” and that even the existence of a relationship outside of marriage was not enough to support a case of Section 306 IPC.

“Marriages have their ups and downs but they want to read between the line, where is not there. It is not permissible in law,” Pahwa argued.

In the absence of any “grave suspicion” or material, no charges can be framed against Tharoor, it was contended.

The case was committed to the Sessions Court by a Magisterial court on February 4, 2019. Tharoor is on bail in the matter.

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