Sunanda Pushkar Case: Delhi Court Adjourns Order Of Framing Charges Against Tharoor

A Delhi court on Friday adjourned the order of framing charges against politician Shashi Tharoor in the Sunanda Pushkar death case. The order has been postponed to July 27.

This adjournment by Judge Geetanjali Goel comes after the court on June 16 postponed the order of framing charges to July 2. Read here. 

In January 2014, Pushkar, a diplomat and then-wife of former United Nations diplomat Shashi Tharoor, was found dead in their hotel suite in Delhi's posh Chanakyapuri. She was earlier believed to have died by suicide by an apparent drug overdose, but medical reports later indicated her death was unnatural.

In 2015 the Delhi Police filed an FIR in the case and in 2018, Tharoor was charged in the case under various sections, including abetment to suicide. A verdict in the case is pending. Tharoor is out on bail. Follow Pushkar's case here.

Sunanda Pushkar Death Case: Here's The Latest

Prosecutors in the Rouse Avenue Court argued Pushkar had suffered marital cruelty, which is also one of the charges against Tharoor, and that her death was not accidental, as post-mortem reports had revealed. They have called for charges of abetment to suicide, marital cruelty (sections 306 and 498A) and murder (section 302) to be framed against the 65-year-old, as per Live Law.

Vikas Pahwa, counsel for Tharoor, said there was "no definite opinion" on the cause of Pushkar's death, which had neither been ruled a suicide nor a homicide. Without the determination of suicide, he argued, charges of section 306 (abetment) could not be framed against Tharoor.

Who was Sunanda Pushkar? 

Pushkar was an Indian-Canadian businesswoman who worked as a sales director in Dubai. She also held stakes in Rendezvous Sports World but later gave up her equity after allegations of corruption against her husband Tharoor.

In days preceding her death, Pushkar and Tharoor found themselves in a Twitter controversy, after alleged messages sent to the latter by Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar began doing rounds. This raised suspicion of an alleged extramarital affair. The couple in a joint statement cleared they were happily married and facts had been misrepresented.