Sunanda Pushkar Case: Shashi Tharoor Relieved From Charges Made Without Any Base For Seven And A Half Years

CASE BACKGROUND

• In a suite of a renowned luxury hotel in Delhi during the night of 17th January 2014, Shashi Tharoor’s wife, Sunanda Pushkar was found dead.
• Shashi Tharoor was charged for the death of his wife with ‘abetment to suicide’ and ‘marital cruelty’.
• Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava said Pushkar was exposed to mental cruelty which prompted her breaking down. It was anything but an unplanned/accidental death. He depended on the post mortem report which proposed that the reason for death could be poisoning, again which could be oral or infused through an injection.
• Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa, who represented Tharoor, contended that the prosecution had neglected to determine the reason for Sunanda Pushkar's demise between 2014 and 2017.
• It was additionally presented that the experts and doctors, who led the post mortem report, went past their purview by depending on secondary ‘circumstantial’ proof.

CASE RELEVANCE

• There can be no case under Sec. 306 if it cannot be established as suicide because first of all, one has to establish that there is a suicide which was committed and since it has been 4 years, the doctors cannot submit if it was a homicide or a suicide, which has created a certain void in the situation.
• They had offered their viewpoint; it was neither self-destruction nor murder, which was again termed as an invalid statement.
• Sunanda Pushkar's son’s statement also engaged a vital role in the case, where he was reported as seeing that in the mortuary of AIIMS, he had asked the doctor who directed the post mortem about the instant cause of death, wherein the doctor reacted that there was no treachery or foul play, except when he went to the media, where he stated that the cause of death was possibly by poisoning.
• The detailed judgement is awaited but the order was passed by Special Judge Geetanjali Goel, in which it was stated that the accusations on Mr. Tharoor were baseless.

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