Sunanda Pushkar death case: Court directs police to hand over documents to Shashi Tharoor

A court here directed the Delhi Police on Thursday to hand over certain documents to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in connection with the case related to his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death in which he is an accused.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal also directed Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) to send an official on December 24 for assistance regarding a report sent by the Laboratory on the post-mortem of Pushkar.

The court passed the directions after it was told by senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Tharoor, that he was unable to open the report received by police in electronic form.

He also said that there were discrepancies in certain electronic evidence provided by the prosecution.

He told the court that some of the documents mentioned in the list of evidence were either not received by him or failed to open.

“Reconciliation and comparison of all documents available with prosecution and defence is taking time,” Pahwa told the court.

Tharoor has been charged under sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but has not been arrested in the case.

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Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple were staying in the hotel as the official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated at that time.

The court had directed the Delhi Police to hand over various documents filed along with the charge sheet, including statements of witnesses, to Tharoor on a plea moved by him.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP was granted regular bail on July 7 after he appeared before the court in pursuance to the summons issued against him.

The court had on June 5 summoned Tharoor, a former Union minister, observing there was sufficient ground to proceed against him in the case.

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