A Delhi Court today has issued notice to the Delhi police on an application that sought to secure the Twitter account of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar, who was found dead at a Delhi hotel, in 2014.
The application is a part of the criminal proceedings against Tharoor in connection with the death of his wife, Sunanda Pushkar, who died under mysterious circumstances in the Leela Palace New Delhi in January 2014. Subsequently, in August 2019, the Delhi Police had pressed for framing of charges under Sections 498A and 306 or alternatively under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against Shashi, who is the sole accused in the case.
However, Shashi moved an application under Section 91 of Criminal Procedure Code to bring on the twitter records, posted by his late wife Sunanda Pushkar, before her death, in order to indicate that Pushkar was not having any “suicidal ideations”, and was rather in a positive frame of mind with respect to her relationship with Tharoor.
Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Shashi while referring to Twitter’s policy has apprehended that, given the long duration of inactivity in the present case i.e. since January 2014, the Twitter account of Sunanda might be deleted in furtherance of Twitter’s policy on inactive accounts. He further sought the Delhi Court for a direction to the Investigating Officer, Delhi Police to write to Twitter for securing Sunanda Pushkar’s account and tweets.
“When a person dies, Twitter deletes the entire account, until an order is passed in this regard. That poses a threat of loss of evidence in this case,” observed the Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa.
On the night of 17 January 2014, Sunanda was found dead in the Leela Palace New Delhi, where she and Shashi were staying, since their house was under renovation. Shashi Tharoor, the sole accused in the case, is currently out on bail.
Further, the matter has been scheduled for hearing on 20 March.
