Sajjan Kumar moves Delhi HC challenging his conviction

The trial court convicted Kumar on February 12 for instigating a mob to kill a father and son, and sentenced him to life imprisonment

Former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar has approached the Delhi High Court challenging his conviction in the murder of a father and son in Saraswati Vihar during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

A file photo of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar leaving the Patiala House courts. (PTI)

The case relates to the killing of Jaswant Singh, 50, and his son Tarundeep Singh, 18, on November 1, 1984. The riots, which followed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, claimed at least 2,800 lives in Delhi alone.

The trial court convicted Kumar on February 12 for instigating a mob to kill the two and sentenced him to life imprisonment on February 25. The court noted systemic failures that allowed Kumar to evade justice for decades, describing the acceptance of the Delhi Police’s “untrace report” in 1994 as a “grave failure of justice,” which had led to the case being closed without notifying Jaswant Singh’s wife.

In his petition before a bench of justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain, to be heard on Friday, Kumar has argued that the verdict is “perverse” and “illegal” and was passed without considering the material on record.

Kumar is currently serving a life sentence in Tihar Jail, handed down by the Delhi High Court in 2018 in connection with the killing of five Sikhs in Palam Colony during the riots.