ARCHIVED FORUM: Gurdwara Tapoban Sahib
'Court allows CBI appeal on anti-Sikh riots case'
Posted by : jagroop singh
Date: 7/16/2004 6:41 am
Court allows CBI appeal on anti-Sikh riots case :
India News > New Delhi, July 15: The Delhi High Court Thursday allowed a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to condone its delay in appealing the acquittal of Congress MP Sajjan Kumar and nine others in a case related to 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Allowing the appeal, a division bench of judges B.A. Khan and Jaspal Singh fixed Sept 13 as the date for hearing the matter.
On April 6, the court had given time to the CBI to file an affidavit explaining the particulars of the circumstances that caused the delay in the filing of the appeal.
At that time, the court observed that there had been "casualness" and "negligence" on the part of the CBI in seeking permission from the central government for filing the appeal after the expiry of a mandatory 90-day period for filing an appeal in certain categories of criminal cases.
Additional Sessions Judge Manju Goel had in December 2002 acquitted Sajjan Kumar, Congress legislator Jaikishan and eight other accused in the anti-Sikh riot case.
Violence against the Sikh community had broken out in Delhi after then prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated Oct 31, 1984, by her Sikh bodyguards.
Acquitting the accused, Goel had said: "The prosecution (CBI) has miserably failed to prove the case against them."
She had said there was no eyewitness in the case and the prosecution was unable to present an unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence to make out a foolproof case.
Quoting a paragraph of the statement made by Anwar Kaur, on whose statement Delhi Police had registered the case against Sajjan Kumar and the others, Goel had said that Anwar Kaur was unsure whether the Congress leader had led the mob that lynched her husband, Nevin Singh, in West Delhi on Nov 1, 1984.
There were a total of 13 accused in the case. Three died during the trial.
Kaur had said in her statement that a mob instigated by Sajjan Kumar had killed her husband in front of her home.
--Indo-Asian News Service
