A Special Court for trying MPs and MLAs has been established and will try the murder of Sunanda Pushkar

The Metropolitan Magistrate’s court today transferred the Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death case, in which her husband and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been charge sheeted for abetting her suicide, to a Special Court designated to try Members of Parliament (MP)s and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA)s. Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmendra Singh transferred the case to Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal, who will take up the matter on May 28.

“Since he is a sitting Member of Parliament, the 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. According to legal experts after taking cognizance, the case expected to be shifted to Additional Sessions Judge chaired court as the punishment in the charged offences may extend up to 10 years.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy was present in the Court. He told media that currently, the initial process is going on and that he would intervene in the case after the cognizance and would definitely point out the crimes committed by Shashi Tharoor in the case before the arguments during the Framing of Charges.

Swamy has told the media that there is enough proof against Shashi Tharoor for trying to destroy proof[1] and for intervening in the postmortem. He said he would also alert the Court on the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Report which categorically found 12 injuries in Sunanda’s body and Delhi Police Vigilance Report also exposed the dubious role of senior officers of Delhi Police in the initial investigation team.

Then Joint Commissioner Vivek Gogia’s role has already been exposed in media reports[2]. Even the AIIMS report has blamed Delhi Police for not submitting the bed sheets from the hotel room where Sunanda was found dead. Only after 11 months did the Delhi Police collect the bed sheet and submit it to AIIMS.

The Delhi Police had on May 14 accused Tharoor, the Lok Sabha MP representing Thiruvananthapuram, of abetting Sunanda Pushkar’s suicide and told a city court that he should be summoned as an accused in the four-and-half-year-old case, claiming there was sufficient evidence against him[3].

In a nearly 3,000-page charge sheet, the police has named Tharoor as the only accused while also alleging that he had subjected his wife to cruelty[4]. It had also urged the court to summon Tharoor as an accused. The couple’s domestic servant, Narayan Singh, has been named one of the key witnesses in the case. Pushkar was mysteriously found dead in a seven-star Hotel Leela room on the night of January 17, 2014.

The Congress leader 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. The court may take cognizance 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.

According to prosecution sources, the charge sheet has mentioned that Sunanda was subjected to mental as well as physical cruelty. The copy of the charge sheet was not made public immediately and it is not known as to what weighed with the police to omit the charge of murder, which was initially in the First Information Report (FIR) when it was filed against unknown persons.

References:

[1] Shashi Tharoor tried all tricks to fool AIIMS doctors during the post-mortem of Sunanda – May 28, 2017, PGurus.com

[2] Home Ministry brings back Vivek Gogia, who hushed up the Sunanda Murder probe to Delhi Police – May 12, 2017, PGurus.com

[3] At last Shashi Tharoor charged by Delhi Police for wife Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death – May 15, 2018, PGurus.com

[4] Why Tharoor is the prime suspect and who is shielding him? Jan 16, 2016, PGurus.com