Shashi Tharoor granted anticipatory bail in Sunanda Pushkar case: Congress leader can't leave country without court's permission

A Delhi court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in a case relating to his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death. The Thiruvananthapuram MP has already been summoned as an accused on July 7 in the case. Special judge Arvind Kumar granted Tharoor the interim bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh while directing him to neither tamper with evidence nor leave the country without the court’s prior permission. [caption id=“attachment_4669321” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File photo of Shashi Tharoor. PTI[/caption] Advocate Vikas Pahwa, who is representing Tharoor, said that a formal bail application will be submitted to the court on 7 July, which is when the Thiruvananthapuram MP has been summoned for further hearings on the case. One of the arguments that Pahwa put forward in support of the bail plea was that he has been “cooperating with the police throughout the investigation,” CNN-News18 reported. In his plea for anticipatory bail, Tharoor had submitted that the charge sheet in the case was filed and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) had categorically stated that the probe was concluded and that his custodial interrogation was not required. Delhi police had opposed his bail plea stating that being an influential person, Tharoor might sway witnesses. It also said that he might flee from justice by flying to a foreign country and settling there. Chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal, who had summoned Tharoor to the trial on 7 July , had said there was sufficient grounds to proceed in the case against him. Tharoor has been charged under sections 498A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but has not been arrested in the case. Tharoor had called the Delhi Police's chargesheet "preposterous" and said he intends to contest it “vigorously”. “I would like to reiterate my position that I find the charges preposterous and baseless, the product of a malicious and vindictive campaign against myself,” he had said in a statement. Pushkar was found dead in a suite The Leela Palace hotel on the night of 17 January, 2014. With inputs from PTI.