New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday granted six days to the city police to comply with its earlier order to de-seal a five-star hotel suite where Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in 2014.
The court also asked the police to file a compliance report on its earlier order to unseal the room. The police has asked for three more days to unseal it.
Metropolitan magistrate Dharmender Singh granted time till October 16 to the police after an additional Delhi commissioner police submitted that the reports from forensic laboratory were likely to come in a couple of days. The court had earlier rapped the police for not complying with its order to de-seal the suite.
While the South Delhi hotel has been urging the court to direct the police to de-seal the room which was sealed for investigation soon after Pushkar was found dead on the night of January 17, 2014, the court has also been directing the police to do so on quite a few occasions.
Hours after Pushkar was found dead, the suite was sealed for investigation. An FIR was registered by Delhi police on January 1, 2015 against unknown persons under IPC Section 302 (murder).
The police was on September 12 directed to de-seal the suite and was allowed to take all articles from the room required for its probe, besides filing a compliance report by today. In this order, the court had noted that a huge financial loss has already been caused to the hotel.
The hotel’s management told the court that as the room had been lying locked for a long time, termites, bugs and other pests had spoilt it and even the adjoining area.
On September 4 too, the court had taken the police to task for its “lethargic attitude” in its probe into the case and summoned the DCP to explain why more time should be granted for de-sealing the suite.
Similarly on August 19, the court had pulled up the agency for delaying the de-sealing of the room and referred to a court order passed on July 21 asking it to do so within four weeks from then.
