Delhi HC notice to police on Shashi Tharoor’s plea to preserve tweets of Sunanda Pushkar

New Delhi [India], June 8 (ANI): Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to Delhi Police on Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s plea seeking direction to preserve the Twitter account and tweets of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, during the pendency of the trial.
Justice Manoj Ohri issued notice to Delhi Police to file a reply on the plea seeking directions to the investigation officer to write a letter to Twitter for securing the inactive Twitter account of late Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor claiming her tweets are relevant for the criminal trial.
The matter was slated for further hearing on July 15.
Tharoor, represented by advocates Gaurav Gupta and Vikas Pahwa, submitted that the tweets and Twitter timeline of the deceased is of utmost importance in this present case.
Pahwa argued that perusal of the tweets of Sunanda would reflect her actual frame of mind, which is contrary to the prosecution case. He also argued that Sunanda never had any suicidal ideations, which is manifested from the series of tweets, withheld by the Delhi Police from the trial court.
However, with the deceased not being alive now, there is a possible threat and reasonable apprehension that the Twitter account and the tweets therein, of the deceased, may be deleted, the plea said.
“If this happens, it would extinguish a very crucial right of the petitioner to exonerate himself from the false charges levelled against him,” it added.
It said that the petitioner has the right to fair trial also entails that the police preserves such materials, documents, and things that are necessary for the adjudication of the case.
A trial court had earlier dismissed the application of Shashi Tharoor seeking to incorporate the tweets of his wife Sunanda Pushkar before her death is put on record.
Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in New Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014. Tharoor was later charged under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) including for abetment to suicide and cruelty.
The lawmaker has been granted bail on a condition that he will seek prior permission of the court before travelling abroad. (ANI)