BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s affidavit filed on July 31 punctures the Delhi Police claims in Status Report, pointing out the faults and wrongdoings in the Sunanda Murder probe. Swamy detailed the evidence destruction by the first probe team of the Delhi Police headed by the then Joint Commissioner Vivek Gogia by not seizing the mobile phones of Sunanda and returning it on the next day to husband Shashi Tharoor and the non-seizure of the CCTV visuals of the main porch of Hotel Leela, which could have easily identified the people who entered and exited. Delhi High Court Bench headed by Justice G S Sistani is hearing the case on Tuesday, August 1, 2017.

…In cases of unnatural deaths suspected with poisoning, it is not a matter of critical importance to discover the identity of the poison…

In his 16 page Interim Affidavit filed along with co-petitioner Advocate Ishkaran Bhandari in response to the Delhi Police’s Status Report, Swamy pointed that within three days of murder, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on January 2014 said that the death was by poisoning in the post-mortem report. AIIMS team lead by Dr.Sudhir Gupta also reported 15 injury marks in the body.

“These findings were sufficient in itself to proceed with the detailed investigation but Delhi Police did not immediately register a First Information Report (FIR) in spite of this clear opinion given by Medical Board, AIIMS, in above stated Post Mortem Report. Instead, the Delhi Police wasted critical time in determining the exact nature of poison by sending viscera samples to FSL, CFSL, FBI thus unnecessarily delaying the investigation and giving precious and highly critical time to the culprits to destroy extremely important evidence,” said Swamy in the affidavit.

BJP leader also accused Delhi Police of wasting time on researching to find the exact nature of poison for three years. “In cases of unnatural deaths suspected with poisoning, it is not a matter of critical importance to discover the identity of the poison as has been held in Bhupendra vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2014) 2SCC 106,” he said.

“Further, to whom the custody of these mobile phones, laptops and electronic devices was given to by the Delhi Police. Further, who in authority decided not to take or record the data of mobile phones, laptops and electronic devices which might have contained important information, messages, call records, audio /video records which could have explained the unnatural death of the deceased. Additionally, it has not been explained as to why the Delhi Police gave back the phones to the deceased’s husband on the evening of 18th January 2014 and under whose instruction was it done and which officer went to the home of the deceased’s husband to give back the mobile phones,” said Swamy, finding the wrongdoings done by the first probe team headed by then Joint Commissioner Vivek Gogia, arguing for handing over the probe to SIT led by CBI.