Sunanda Pushkar murder case: Court orders de-sealing of hotel suite where Shashi Tharoor's wife was found dead in 2014

A Delhi court on Friday ordered de-sealing of a suite in a five-star hotel here where Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in 2014 under mysterious circumstances.

Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma directed to unlock the suite within four weeks from today and said the hotel could not be put to unending hardship due to laxity on part of the police.

The court, however, said that the probe agency would be at liberty to visit the suite before filing of the compliance report in the court regarding de-sealing of the suite.

The police was also allowed to take out the articles lying inside the suite with due care for the purpose of investigation.

The court noted that no offence was found on part of the hotel and that no police official visited the suite for last more than one year.

The hotel had submitted before the court that locking of the suite would create sanitary and cleanliness issues for it.

The police had said in its status report that it was not able to reach a definitive conclusion so far regarding the cause of Pushkar’s death.

The hotel had claimed that due to the sealing of the suite, which costs between Rs 55,000 and Rs 61,000 a night, it had suffered a loss of over Rs 50 lakh in the last three years.

It claimed that a number of times, police and forensic teams had visited the suite and it was no longer required to be kept sealed.

“The hotel continues to suffer loss with each passing day. The continuous sealing of the suite is also affecting the use of other rooms/suites on the same floor,” it had said.

The suite was sealed on January 17, 2014 during the investigation into the death of Pushkar.

An FIR was registered by Delhi police on January 1, 2015 against unknown persons under IPC section 302 (murder).