Sunanda Pushkar Case: Supreme Court issues notice to Delhi Police

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and A M Khanwilkar issued a notice to the police on Mr Swamy's plea, leaving open the question of maintainability of the petition.

"Keeping the question of maintainability open, let a notice be issued," the bench said.

The court was hearing Mr Swamy's appeal against the Delhi High Court's October 26 verdict dismissing his plea for a probe into Pushkar's death by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team.

Ms Pushkar was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a suite of a five-star hotel in Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.

The high court had last year rejected Mr Swamy's plea for a court-monitored SIT probe into Ms Pushkar's death and termed his public interest litigation (PIL) a "textbook example of a political interest litigation".

Mr Swamy, in his plea before the high court, had alleged that the police had "botched up" the probe and accused Mr Tharoor of "interfering" in the investigation as a minister in the erstwhile UPA regime and later.

The high court had chastised the BJP leader and his lawyer, who was a co-petitioner before it, for making "sweeping allegations" in the petition against Mr Tharoor and the Delhi Police without giving any basis for such accusations.

The high court had said that Mr Swamy ought to have mentioned his political affiliation as well as that of Mr Tharoor in his plea as these facts were important to the adjudication of the case.