The Delhi High Court recently dismissed a plea by the State seeking to condone a delay of nearly 28 years in filing an appeal against the acquittal of several individuals implicated in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The case, known as State v Hari Lal & Ors, pertains to incidents of rioting, looting, and killing of Sikh persons in the national capital in October and November of 1984, following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
The FIR was registered for offences under Sections 147, 148, 149, 307, 436, and 427 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Saraswati Vihar Police Station. All the accused in the case were acquitted by the Sessions Court through an order dated March 28, 1995.
In 2019, the SN Dhingra committee, appointed by the Supreme Court, recommended that an appeal may be filed in this case. However, the appeal was not filed until recently, resulting in a delay of 27 years and 335 days.
In an order pronounced on Monday, a division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna noted that the prosecution or the complainant could have filed an appeal on time if they were aggrieved by the judgment of acquittal. The bench stated,
“It was not disputed on behalf of the State that no further investigations have been carried out by the Investigating Agencies and no fresh material in respect of the alleged offences has been placed on record. There is no explanation as to why the State or the complainant did not file the appeal on the grounds that were available even at the time of acquittal.”
The Court further observed that the grounds for appeal now being cited are based on the findings by the Special Investigation Team (SIT). However, the SIT also observed that the reason for disbelieving the witnesses on account of the delay of FIR was not correct. The Court pointed out that this ground existed at the time of trial and acquittal.
The bench concluded,
“It is evident that the grounds of appeal which are now been agitated are purely on the merits of the case which existed even at the time of trial and consequent acquittal. No reason whatsoever has been given for explaining the delay of about 28 years. Pertinently, the Report was given by SIT on 15.04.2019 but even thereafter there is a delay of about four years for which no cogent explanation has been given.”
The Court dismissed the application seeking the condonation of delay as well as the leave petition, stating that the grounds taken by the State were not justifiable.
Additional Public Prosecutor Tarang Srivastava appeared for the State.