Sunanda case: Notice to Centre, Delhi on Swami petition for probe

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and the Delhi government on the special leave petition filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, seeking a SIT probe into the “mysterious death” of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Cong-ress MP Sashi Tharoor, on January 17, 2014, at a hotel in the capital.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and A.M. Kanwilkar while issuing notice made it clear that the question of maintainability will be decided first before taking up the issue on merits. The court wanted Dr Swami to satisfy whether a third party, who is not in any way connected with the victim, could seek such a remedy. Dr Swami said the high court had erroneously rejected his petition.

Dr Swami has moved the apex court after the Delhi high court had in October last year rejected the plea for a probe by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) observing that being a politician he has no locus standi to file such a petition. He said he had filed a petition against former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case and he would satisfy his locus standi.

He claimed that it took nearly one year for the Delhi police to lodge FIR in the case and the post-mortem report said that Pushkar had died of unnatural death. The bench, however, asked him to argue on the issue of maintainability.

The Delhi high court had on October 26 last year rejected Dr Swami’s plea for a court-monitored SIT probe into Pushkar’s death.