Court sought for Police’s response following Tharoor's plea on Pushkar's Twitter account

A Delhi court has asked for response from the city police following 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.

The Investigating officer (IO) of the case has been asked by Special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar 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.

Tharoor 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 but he got pre-arrest bail, which was later converted to regular bail.

In the plea filed on 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.

The incident (Pushkar’s death) took place after a bitter spat between the couple on Twitter over his alleged affair with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar.

Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a suite of luxury hotel Leela in Delhi’s Chanakyapuri on the night of January 17, 2014.