HC unhappy with delay in Sunanda death probe

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday expressed unhappiness over the delay in the probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar in 2014 and sought to know the status of investigation so far.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Chander Shekhar referred to the fact that the incident took place in January 2014 and said more than three-and-half years have elapsed and nothing concrete has emerged so far.

Pushkar was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a suite of a five-star hotel in south Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.

The court’s remarks came after Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain submitted that Delhi Police was not treating BJP MP Subramanian Swamy’s plea as an adversarial one and the investigation was being conducted with ‘utmost diligence’.

The ASG also said that the investigation was now at the fag end and a final conclusion will be arrived at soon.

He contended that transfer of investigation at this stage to any other agency would only delay the ongoing probe.

The law officer, representing the police, told the bench that senior police officers were present in the court and were carrying the complete case diary for its perusal.

The bench then observed that it was not fair to “look into or monitor the investigation”, but would “certainly like to know where the investigation stands as of today.”

Monitoring of the probe was not under the domain of the judiciary and the court was not inclined to give any direction to that effect, the Court said.

The bench stated that they did not to pre-empt the outcome of the probe and thus could not comment as to whether either a charge sheet or the closure report would be filed.

“We are only concerned about the substantial time taken in concluding the investigation and thus, concerned about the delay,” it observed.