Delhi police push for murder charge against Shashi Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

The Delhi police on Saturday pushed for murder charge against senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in connection with the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. However, the murder charge is being pushed alternatively to the charge of abetment of suicide. Concluding his arguments, Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava prayed to the court, "Charges against Tharoor be framed under section 498A (cruelty), 306 (abetment of suicide) or in an alternative section 302 (murder)."

Opposing the same, Tharoor's counsel Vikas Pahwa said, "Now, my friend is becoming adventurous, his inferences are now beyond the charge sheet. In four years, they couldn't even prove the cause of death." Special CBI judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar has now posted the matter for October 17, as the next date of hearing, when the defence will commence its arguments. Reacting to the push to press murder charges in the case, Pahwa said it was "absurd" and "preposterous". "The prosecutor's arguments are contrary to the bare reading of the charge sheet. The charges pressed are absurd and preposterous," said Pahwa.

The prosecutor read the evidence in bits and pieces and tried to connect with the charges proposed by him, contrary to the settled principles of law, he said. He didn't read the opinion of experts who conducted the psychological autopsy, Pahwa said and added, they categorically held it's neither a case of homicide nor suicide, but due to some unidentified biological reasons. "If there is no evidence of suicide, where is the question of abetment to suicide," Pahwa said. "I can say every bit of evidence collected by the SIT speaks just the opposite to what the prosecutor argued," the senior counsel said and added, "I will argue on the next date, rebutting each and every point."

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