'84 riots: Delhi HC verdict on Sajjan's plea today
The Delhi high court will pronounce its verdict on a plea by Congress leader Sajjan Kumar challenging a 2010 trial court order framing charges against him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case related to the killing of six people in Sultanpuri area, on Tuesday.
The Delhi high court will pronounce its verdict on a plea by Congress leader Sajjan Kumar challenging a 2010 trial court order framing charges against him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case related to the killing of six people in Sultanpuri area, on Tuesday.
The judgment is set to come two-and-a-half months after a trial court acquitted Kumar in another riots case where five members of a family were murdered in Delhi Cantonment area. On April 30, the court let off Kumar saying he "deserved benefit of doubt" as the witnesses were unreliable.
The acquittal had triggered widespread protest by Sikhs.Justice Suresh Kait, who had reserved the order in the Sultanpuri case on May 24, will pronounce the verdict at 10.30 am on Tuesday.
Besides the Congress leader, co-accused Ved Prakash Pial alias Vedu Pradhan and Brahmanand Gupta had also moved the high court against framing of charges against them in the case. Complainant Sheela Kaur had filed a cross-appeal in the high court seeking to invoke the charges of criminal conspiracy against Kumar and four other accused in the case.
Earlier in July 2010, a lower court had framed charges against Kumar, Brahmanand Gupta, Peru, Khushhal Singh and Ved Prakash in connection with the case in which six persons were killed in Sultanpuri in anti-Sikhs riots that erupted in Delhi and elsewhere after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
Besides charges of murder and rioting, the court had also framed charges for the offence of spreading enmity between the two communities against the accused in the case. The CBI had filed two charge sheets against Kumar and others in January 2010 in the riots cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of the Justice GT Nanavati Commission which probed the sequence of events leading to the riots.