Why is the Delhi Police avoiding to submit its own vigilance report on the preliminary investigation of the murder of Sunanda?

Pre-trial procedures in the Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death case on Thursday witnessed objections and counter objections between Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s lawyers and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on the latter’s role in the prosecution. Swamy filed more than 200 pages rejoinder to Tharoor’s objections citing various Supreme Court judgments allowing other persons to help the prosecution and pointing out the issues missed by the prosecution. The BJP leader also argued that the Delhi Police must submit its own Vigilance Report exposing the wrongs committed by the first probe team headed by the then Joint Commissioner Vivek Gogia in sabotaging the Sunanda case.

After the brief arguments and counters, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal posted the case for further arguments on September 20. Delhi Police also handed over various witness statements in the chargesheet to Tharoor’s lawyer Vikas Pahwa.

Citing the Indian Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) 302 and several supreme court judgments like J K International case, Dharam Pal Vs State of Haryana and Subramanian Swamy Vs Manmohan Singh, Swamy in his 200-page rejoinder said that Magistrate is empowered to decide on the petition of other persons who can help the prosecution or if other person is bringing out missed angles or pieces of evidence by the Prosecution.

In his rejoinder, Swamy also pointed out that the Delhi Police has at present charged Shashi Tharoor with Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under Sections 498A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty). He pointed out that the Delhi Police has not yet charged Tharoor for the 12 injury marks in the body of wife Sunanda, which was well documented by the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) and Tharoor’s various emails to doctors conducting the postmortem to intervene on the case.

The BJP leader also reiterated for the production of Vigilance Report of Delhi Police exposing the sabotages done by the first probe team headed by the then Joint Commissioner Vivek Gogia[1]. For the past two months, Delhi Police is evading to file written reply on Swamy’s demand for production of the sensitive Vigilance Report.

Shashi Tharoor was granted regular bail on July 7 and was exempted from appearing on Friday, after considering his request to travel to Europe. Tharoor’s passport in the custody of the court was released after submitting Rs. Two lakh worth fixed deposit receipts[2].

Meanwhile, Tharoor has already filed a petition seeking non-leakage of Charge sheet on Sunanda’s mysterious death case.

References:

[1] Sunanda case – Delhi Police hush up Vigilance Report exposing sabotage of investigation by first probe team led by Jt. Commissioner Vivek Gogia – Jul 7, 2018, PGurus.com

[2] Lies and more lies of Shashi Tharoor as Kerala floods – Aug 23, 2018, PGurus.com