Delhi HC dismisses plea seeking SIT probe into Sunanda Pushkar death

Sunanda Pushkar was found dead on January 17, 2014

The Delhi High Court has dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking directions to Delhi Police, CBI and the Ministry of Home Affairs to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for conducting a court-monitored probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar. The court observed that the petition was “replete with broad and sweeping allegations” and was “perhaps a textbook example of a political interest litigation dressed up as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL)”.

“The court should be careful in not letting the judicial process be abused by political personae for their own purposes, whatever the nature of the matter may be. That is not to say that no political person can file a PIL. It is only that, in such instances, particularly where the principal allegations are against political opponents, the court should be cautious in proceeding in the matter. The court has to be satisfied that the allegations are based on some credible material and are made with a sense of responsibility,” said a bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice I S Mehta.

The bench highlighted that the plea filed by Swamy and advocate Ishkaran Singh Bhandari had said the investigation into Pushkar’s death was… “an extreme example of the slow motion of the criminal justice system and the extent to which it can be subverted.” Underlining the allegations against specific people, the bench said, “Despite the above grave allegations against named persons, the petitioners (Swamy and Bhandari) have not thought it fit to arraign them as respondents. There is no valid explanation offered for the failure to do so…”

On Thursday, Swamy told the bench that he could substantiate his allegations with another affidavit. “I bear 100 per cent responsibility for this PIL. This is not my first PIL. I have appeared before many courts. I have filed several petitions in the past. Many of them are reported judgments and I have been successful in most of them. I have also been the law minister of the country,” he said. To which, the bench said, “If you have proofs, why it has not been submitted in court?”