The Delhi High Court has sought responses from the CBI and disgraced Congress leader Sajjan Kumar on a plea filed by the family of the victims challenging his acquittal in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. A bench of justices G S Sistani and G P Mittal issued notice to CBI and Kumar for August 27. The notice was issued on a plea filed by members of the victims' family who contended that the trial court had failed to appreciate the legally admissible evidence in its verdict.
The appeal filed by Jagdish Kaur and Nirpreet Kaur, who had lost their close relatives in the carnage following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has sought setting aside of the trial court's April 30 judgement. They have in their plea filed through advocate Kamna Vohra contended that the verdict was "erroneous" as the trial court had failed to appreciate that there was ample legally admissible evidence against Kumar to show he had allegedly "engineered" the murders of five Sikh persons in Raj Nagar area of Delhi Cantonment. They also submitted that the trial court had ignored the statements of Jagdish Kaur, Jagsher Kaur and Nirpreet Kaur who were direct witness to Kumar's presence and "speech of hatred" given by him on November 2, 1984.
On April 30, allowing Kumar to walk free in the case, the trial court in its 129-page verdict had said that Jagdish Kaur's subsequent testimony, that she had seen him instigating a mob with his provocative speech, was "not acceptable and believable". The court had acquitted Kumar, a former Lok Sabha MP from Outer Delhi, but convicted five others — Balwan Khokkar, an ex-councillor, Mahender Yadav, an ex-MLA, Kishan Khokkar, Girdhari Lal and Captain Bhagmal — for their involvement in the case. The case relates to anti-Sikh riots that had broken out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
