Sunanda Pushkar death: Supreme Court issues notice to Delhi Police

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today issued a notice to Delhi Police following a plea submitted by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on the death of Sunanda Pushkar, the wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

In his plea, Swamy had doubted the probe being conducted by Delhi Police.

Last month, Swamy had approached the apex court against the Delhi High Court order that dismissed his plea for a court-monitored SIT probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar.

A division bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Amitava Roy asked Swamy to satisfy the court on the question of maintainability of his plea.

Posting the matter for hearing after three weeks, the bench raised the question about the maintainability of Swamy's PIL and asked him to apprise it whether he has the locus to file a petition in the case.

"We understand the merit but the question is of maintainability. You have to satisfy the court on categorical findings of the Delhi High Court," said the bench.

On October 26 last year, the Delhi High Court had dismissed Swamy's plea while terming it as a "political interest litigation".

The High Court had said it is "unfortunate that court is being used in this manner" and "courts should be careful in not letting the judicial machinery be used by political personalities for their own purposes".

"This is perhaps a textbook example of political interest litigation dressed up as public interest litigation," the High Court bench had remarked while dismissing Swamy's petition, adding that it was not satisfied that it could be entertained as a PIL (Public Interest Litigation).

In his petition before the High Court, Swamy had said there has been constant attempt to block the investigation and alleged that the registration of an FIR took almost a year and nothing has happened after that.

The plea had alleged that "very influential people are involved in the case, leading to attempts to protect them and the matter has faced a lot of unnecessary delay already".

The court had also questioned Swamy for not stating anywhere in his petition that he is a leader of the BJP, and that the person against whom he was making the allegation was from the Congress.

SC issues notice to Delhi Police on a plea of BJP leader @Swamy39 alleging that proper probe was not being done by police in Sunanda Pushkar death case.

(With inputs from agencies)