Breather for Sajjan Kumar

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the trial of a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving Congress leader and former Member of Parliament Sajjan Kumar. Bhadra Sinha reports.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the trial of a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case involving Congress leader and former Member of Parliament (MP) Sajjan Kumar.

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Issuing a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the prosecuting agency in the case, a bench headed by Justice P. Sathasivam said no trial proceedings would take place for the next two weeks.

As there was no counsel to represent the victims while the court heard Sajjan's appeal,

senior advocate and victims' lawyer H.S. Phoolka later requested the judge to at least permit the completion of the cross-examination of a witness on Friday.

Phoolka told the court the cross-examination had been going on for 16 days and that the witness was not from Delhi.

The court, however, turned down his request and said it would hear the matter only two weeks later.

In his appeal, filed through advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, Kumar contended that the complainant's testimony against him were "unreliable" and that the High Court had made various observations that were not required and could have a bearing on the trial.

The former MP has claimed that complainant Jagdish Kaur had filed a sworn affidavit before the Ranganath Mishra Commission on September 7, 1995, in which she had named several Congress leaders, but not him, as having been involved in the rioting.

Kumar claimed that Kaur, however, did not take his name when she recorded her statement during a personal appearance before the Commission.

He also submitted that two other witnesses in the case had surfaced 24 years later to depose against him.

Kumar has approached the Supreme Court against a Delhi High Court verdict that dismissed his petition against a trial court order that framed charges against him in the anti-sikh riots case.