Sunanda Pushkar death case: Delhi court dismisses Tharoor's plea for production of tweets

A Delhi court Thursday dismissed a plea of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor seeking to place before it certain tweets of his deceased wife Sunanda Pushkar before her death in 2014.

Tharoor, the sole accused in the death case of his wife, had told the court that Delhi Police was trying to selectively place reliance on a some of Pushkar's tweets to claim the differences which allegedly led her to commit suicide, whereas in entirety they showed her positive frame of mind quite optimistic about her relationship with him.

The former Union minister who had got pre-arrest bail, later converted to regular bail, was accused by Delhi Police under Sections 498-A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.

Special judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar dismissed the application saying that "at the stage of (framing of) charge such a roving inquiry by the court is not expected".

Tharoor will have the liberty to produce the tweets at an appropriate stage, the court said.

"When the documents are in the public domain as per the submission of the senior counsel for the accused, the accused will have the liberty to produce them at an appropriate stage. The court will not venture into this exercise of procuring document for the accused which may possibly contain his defence.

"It goes without saying that at the stage of charge such a roving inquiry by the Court is not expected and the court has to look into the documents of the Prosecution to ascertain whether a prima facie case is made out or not. In view of the aforesaid, I am of the considered view that the application is liable to be dismissed and it is ordered accordingly," the judge said.

Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Tharoor, had told the court that "the documents/tweets are of sterling quality and need perusal by the court as they will assist the court in framing the charge or discharge the accused."
"The prosecution is trying to selectively place reliance on a small part of the Twitter Account/ tweets of the deceased and withholding the remaining tweets," the application filed by advocate Gaurav Gupta said, adding that "if the police wanted to access the Twitter account, it could have simply downloaded the same as the account is available online even today and that the probe agency had undertook a half-baked attempt in procuring the Twitter Account."
Tharoor had earlier told the court, "This is a case where cause of death is not established yet. The charge sheet took very adventurous route and wanted a psychological autopsy. But nothing has established in the case. There are rather reports which say it was neither homicide nor suicide. A psychological autopsy was conducted. They wanted to know the mental status of victim. But till date they are not clear whether she committed suicide or it was a homicide."