Sunanda Pushkar death: SC terms Subramanian Swamy's plea infructuous

The Supreme Court today disposed of a plea by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy seeking an SIT probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar saying it has become infructuous as Delhi police has filed a charge sheet in the case.

A bench of justices Arun Mishra and S Abdul Nazeer told Swamy that nothing more survives in the petition as now police has filed the charge sheet in the case.

"We are leaving all question open. The petition has become infructuous as police have now filed the charge sheet in the case," the bench said.

Swamy said that liberty should be granted to him to approach the court if he is aggrieved in the case.

"You may come at a later stage but this petition is over," the bench said and disposed of the matter.

The apex court had on February 23 sought the response of the Delhi Police on the plea of Swamy while leaving open the question of maintainability of the petition.

Swamy has file an appeal against the Delhi High Court's October 26 verdict dismissing his plea for a probe into Pushkar's death by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT).

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

The high court had last year rejected Swamy's plea for a court-monitored SIT probe into Pushkar's death and termed his public interest litigation (PIL) a "textbook example of a political interest litigation".

Swamy, in his plea before the high court, had alleged that the police had "botched up" the probe and accused Tharoor of "interfering" in the investigation as a minister in the erstwhile UPA regime and later.

The high court had chastised the BJP leader and his lawyer, who was a co-petitioner before it, for making "sweeping allegations" in the petition against Tharoor and the Delhi Police without giving any basis for such accusations.

The high court had said that Swamy ought to have mentioned his political affiliation as well as that of Tharoor in his plea as these facts were important to the adjudication of the case.