The Delhi High Court dismissed a plea challenging Sajjan Kumar’s bail in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, noting he has already been convicted and is in custody, rendering the petition unnecessary.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday (Feb 20th) disposed of a plea challenging the bail granted to former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, after being informed that he had already been convicted in the case. Justice Vikas Mahajan noted the development and declared the petition infructuous.
“The Central government standing counsel for the petitioner (SIT) submits that during the pendency of the petition, the respondent (Kumar) has been convicted in the case and formally taken into custody. Therefore, this petition has become infructuous,”
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said the court.
Kumar was found guilty by a trial court on February 12 in a case related to the murder of two persons in Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar during the riots. The trial court is yet to announce the quantum of his sentence.
Sajjan Kumar is already serving a life sentence in another murder case related to the riots, which erupted after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) had challenged Kumar’s reprieve in the present case and sought to overturn the trial court’s April 27, 2022, bail order.
The Delhi High Court had stayed the bail order on July 4, 2022, and issued a notice to Kumar, seeking his response.
The case concerns the murders of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarun Deep Singh, both residents of Raj Nagar, during the 1984 riots. According to the SIT, four others were injured in the incident. A case of rioting and murder was registered at Saraswati Vihar Police Station in 1991, based on an affidavit filed by a woman before the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry in September 1985.
The woman’s affidavit explicitly named Sajjan Kumar as the person who instigated the mob. Her statement was also recorded in another FIR at Punjabi Bagh Police Station, though the judicial record of that FIR was later removed.
Kumar was previously convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the killings of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar Part-I in Palam Colony on November 1-2, 1984, and for burning down a Gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part II. His appeal against this conviction is currently pending before the Supreme Court.
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