As Shashi Tharoor was present at the court while the judgment was read out, he thanked the court and said, "It had been seven and half years and it was torture," Tharoor said, thanking the court.
A Delhi court on Wednesday discharged Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in the Sunanda Pushkar death case. Tharoor, former union minister, who is currently on bail in the case, was chargesheeted 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 (IPC). Tharoor's wife Pushkar was found dead in the suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014, following which the police had charged Tharoor with abetment to suicide, among other charges. The Congress MP was present at the court when the verdict was given. "It had been seven and half years and it was torture," Tharoor said, thanking the court.
The order was pronounced by special judge Geetanjali Goel. The last hearing in this matter was on April 12 when the court reserved the orders.
An FIR against Shashi Tharoor was filed in 2015 regarding Sunanda Pushkar's death. Apart from the charges of abetment to suicide, he was also accused of marital cruelty.
Earlier, Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava said Pushkar was subjected to mental cruelty which led to her deteriorating. It was not an accidental death, the public prosecutor contended relying on the post mortem report which suggests that the cause of death is poisoning which could be oral or injected.
Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, who represented Tharoor argued that the prosecution failed to ascertain the cause of Sunanda Pushkar's death between 2014 and 2017. It was also submitted that the doctors who conducted the preliminary post mortem report went beyond their jurisdiction by relying on circumstantial evidence.