New Delhi: A Delhi court Monday sought response from the city police on a plea of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor seeking preservation of his deceased wife’s Twitter account and tweets made by her prior to her death in 2014.
Special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar directed the investigating officer (IO) in the case to file his reply on Tharoor’s plea by March 20, when the court will next hear the matter.
The court had last month dismissed Tharoor’s plea seeking to place before it certain tweets of his wife, saying he will have the liberty to produce them at an appropriate stage.
The former union minister who had got pre-arrest bail, which was later converted to regular bail, was charged by the Delhi Police under Sections 498-A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.
In the plea filed Monday, senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Tharoor, said Twitter may delete her entire account since she expired in 2014 and that poses a threat of loss of evidence in this case.
When an individual dies, “Twitter may delete the entire account, until and unless an order is passed in this regard. That poses a threat of loss of the evidence in this case,” Pahwa said
“Since 2014 her (Pushkar’s) account is inactive. Give a direction to IO to write to Twitter India to preserve her account and tweets,” he requested the court.
Police claimed that Tharoor, the sole accused in the case, had abetted his wife’s suicide as he had tortured her. The maximum punishment for the offence listed in the charge sheet is 10 years of imprisonment.
Pushkar’s death had created a sensation as it came shortly after a bitter spat between the couple on Twitter over his alleged affair with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.
Pushkar, 51, was found dead in a suite of luxury hotel Leela in Delhi’s Chanakyapuri the night of January 17, 2014. The couple was staying at the hotel as the official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated at that time.
PTI