A Delhi court on Thursday, 24 May, transferred the Sunanda Pushkar death case, in which her husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been chargesheeted for abetting her suicide, to a special court designated to try lawmakers.
Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmendra Singh transferred the case to Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal, who will take up the matter on 28 May.
"Since he is a sitting Member of Parliament, matter is being sent to the special designated court for politicians, that is ACMM Samar Vishal. Matter be taken up on May 28," the court said.
The Delhi Police had on 14 May accused Tharoor, a Lok Sabha MP representing Thiruvananthapuram, of abetting Pushkar's suicide, and told a city court that he should be summoned as an accused in the four-and-a-half-year-old case, claiming there was sufficient evidence against him.
In a nearly 3,000-page chargesheet, police named Tharoor as the only accused while also alleging that he had subjected his wife to cruelty.
The couple's domestic servant, Narayan Singh, has been named one of the key witnesses in the case.
Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel room on the night of 17 January 2014.
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.
Under section 498A, the maximum punishment is up to three years of imprisonment, while jail term up to 10 years is prescribed under section 306.
"It is presumed that if she has committed suicide, she must have been subjected to cruelty before death. Court may take cognisance of this fact that it is a case of abetment as the death has taken place within seven years of the marriage and under the law a case of abetment is made out," Special Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava had told the court.
Under Section 113A of the Indian Evidence Act, a court "may presume, having regard to all the other circumstances of the case, that ... suicide had been abetted by her husband or by such relative of her husband" if she kills herself within seven years from the date of her marriage.
The chargesheet, which includes several annexures including medical reports, said that Pushkar died within four years of her marriage with Tharoor. The couple had entered wedlock on 22 August 2010.
The suite of the South Delhi hotel where Pushkar had died was sealed by the police on the night of her death for investigation.
An FIR was registered by Delhi Police on 1 January 2015 against unknown persons under IPC section 302 (murder).
According to prosecution sources, the chargesheet has mentioned that Pushkar was allegedly subjected to mental as well as physical cruelty. Tharoor has not been arrested in the case.
The copy of the chargesheet was not made public immediately and it is not known why the police decided to omit the charge of murder, which was initially in the FIR when it was filed against unknown persons.
The Delhi High Court had 26 October 2017 dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking court-monitored SIT probe into the death of Pushkar, terming his PIL a "textbook example of a political interest litigation", instead of public interest litigation or a PIL.
Later, Swamy had moved the Supreme Court against the High Court order. The top court had then asked him to satisfy it on the question of maintainability of his plea.
The special investigation team (SIT) on 20 April had told the apex court that a draft final report has been prepared after conducting "thorough professional and scientific investigations" in the case relating to the death of Congress MP 's wife.
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