Delhi High Court raps cops for tardy Sunanda Pushkar probe

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday rapped the Delhi Police for its delay and lackadaisical attitude in investigating the Sunanda Pushkar death case.

Referring to the slow pace of the investigation, the bench of Justice GS Sistani and Justice Chandrashekhar said, "It has been almost over three years but nothing concrete has come up as of today. Certainly the probe cannot be unending."

The court's remarks came after Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain said that the investigation was carried out with utmost diligence and is at the fag end. He also added that the transfer of the investigation to some other agency would cause delay to the probe.

Referring to the delay, the ASG claimed the delay was due to receiving the scientific reports from various agencies and not at the individual level of the police officers.

The Bench observed that it would not be fair to look into the investigation but they would want to know about the present status of the case and its investigation.

The court, however, said that the monitoring of the probe was not the jurisdiction of the judiciary.

"We are only concerned about the substantial time taken in concluding the investigation and thus, concerned about the delay," it observed.

During the proceedings, the law officer appearing for the police, offered that police officials be given some time in a chamber hearing to apprise the bench about the intricacies of the case as he did not wish to discuss them in an open court.

The Bench then directed the ASG to go through them and inform it after two weeks about the status of the probe into the death.

"If you have some different report on the development in the probe after two weeks, it's okay. Otherwise, we will look into it. Before we get into it, we will wait for two more weeks and see what you have come up with," the Bench added.

The observation came while hearing a plea filed by BJP Leader Subramanium Swamy who has sought court-monitored probe by either an SIT or CBI in connection to the death of Pushkar.

Meanwhile, appearing for Shiv Menon, Sunanda Pushkar's son, his counsel Vikas Pahwa said that a copy of the petition filed by Swamy along with other documents should be supplied to him because he is the son of the deceased.

The court agreed to this contention and directed advocate Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, to give the documents to Menon thereby fixing the next date of hearing to September 21.