New Delhi, June 5:  A special Patiala House court on Tuesday summoned Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in connection with Sunanda Pushkar death case. The court took cognisance of the charge sheet, filed by the Delhi police against Tharoor and has asked him to appear before it on July 7 saying that it has enough evidence to begin the trail.

Vikas Pahwa, counsel for Shashi Tharoor said, "Since the Magistrate summoned Shashi Tharoor for 7th July, we shall be asking for a copy of the charge-sheet, after going through it, we'll decide our further course of action. He will take all legal remedies available to him in law".

"Since no offences are made out and the prosecution case is absurd & preposterous and is contrary to various judgments of SC, we shall take appropriate steps to deal with the charge-sheet", Pahwa added.

Tharoor has been charged under sections 498 A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code. Under section 498A, the maximum punishment is up to three years of imprisonment, while jail term up to 10 years is prescribed under section 306.

For the unversed, Pushkar was found dead in a hotel room in New Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014. “I have no desire to live…all I pray for is death,” Sunanda had written in an e-mail to her husband Shashi Tharoor nine days before she was found dead in the hotel room, police said.  Reports by the Police informed that Sunanda’s death was due to poisoning and 27 tablets of Alprax were found in her room but it was not clear how many pills she had consumed.

In a nearly 3,000-page charge sheet, the police named Tharoor as the only accused while also alleging that he had subjected his wife to cruelty.  Earlier in May, a Delhi court had transferred the Sunanda Pushkar death case, in which her husband Shashi Tharoor has been chargesheeted for abetting her suicide, to a special court designated to try lawmakers.

According to a report by PTI, Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmendra Singh transferred the case to Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal, who will take up the matter on May 28.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 05, 2018 02:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).