The Delhi High Court refuses to restrain journalist Arnab Goswami and his Republic TV from airing news about Sunanda Pushkar's death case. The HC, however, holds that Arnab and his channel should respect Shashi Tharoor's right to silence in connection with his wife Sunanda's death. The HC also asks Arnab and Republic TV to send an advance notice to Tharoor for his views before airing any news on the Sunanda Pushkar death case.


Tharoor has alleged that the journalist and his channel continued to indulge in misreporting and had broadcast an eight-hour long programme on September 4 relating to his wife's death. Tharoor moved a fresh application in the pending Rs 2 crore civil defamation suit against Goswami and the Republic TV for allegedly making defamatory remarks against him while airing news on the death of Pushkar.


Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a five-star hotel in South Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014. The matter is still under investigation.


In their affidavit filed before the high court recently, the journalist and the news channel had said they have neither "condemned' Tharoor, nor suggested that he was involved in the death of his wife. They had also denied that Tharoor was called "the killer' of his wife by him or the channel, as alleged by the MP.


The politician has alleged that despite assurances given in the court on May 29 by the counsel for Goswami and Republic TV, they were engaged in "defaming and maligning' him.


The Congress leader has sought a direction to them that they should not mention the expression "murder of Sunanda Pushkar' anywhere, since it is yet to be established by a competent court whether her death was "murder'.