NEW DELHI, JUNE 05,
A Delhi court on Tuesday summoned Congress leader Shashi Tharoor as an accused in the case of death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.
Directing him to appear before the court on July 7, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal said: “There are sufficient material at this stage to proceed against Tharoor. I have gone through and perused the charge sheet and documents filed along with it. Upon the police report, I take cognizance of the charges of abetment of suicide of the late Sunanda Pushkar and committing cruelty upon her by Shashi Tharoor.”On May 28, the court reserved the order on taking cognizance of the charges. Additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava argued that there was sufficient material on record to prove the charges against Mr. Tharoor of subjecting Pushkar to cruelty and thereby abetting her suicide.
The Delhi Police have charged Mr. Tharoor under Sections 498 A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
Reading out from the charge sheet, the prosecutor informed the court that Pushkar had in an email to Mr. Tharoor expressed her wish to die. “I do not care about the tests. I have no will to live, all I pray for is death,” Mr. Shrivastava read out from the charge sheet, in support of the charges against the Congress leader, while urging the court to take cognizance of the probe report and summon him as an accused. Mr. Tharoor in a tweet issued a statement calling the charges against him “preposterous and baseless”.The post mortem report had stated that there were injuries on the body of Pushkar, Mr. Shrivastava said. When the court asked the prosecutor about the cause of her death, he said it was due to poisoning, but added that the matter was under investigation.
