New Delhi: As part of its yet another judicial stunt Delhi High Court has here on Tuesday has decided to give a chance to hearing a plea filed against senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar seeking cancellation of bail in regard to 1984 Sikh genocide case.
Sikh Genocide 1984 accuse Sajjan Kumar.(File Photo)
On July 19, the Delhi High Court heard Sajjan Kumar’s plea seeking cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted by the trial court related to killing of three Sikhs in West Delhi area during the 1984 Sikh killings. On July 13, a second judge of the Delhi High Court recused himself from Kumar’s case. Earlier too, one judge had recused from hearing the matter, reads the quote from the report published in an English vernacular.
The so called Special Investigation Team (SIT) had approached the Delhi High Court to try and get the anticipatory bail granted by the trial court to congress leader Sajjan Kumar cancelled. On June 10, the first Delhi High Court Judge recused himself from hearing Kumar’s bail cancellation plea in connection with the riots, as the appearing advocate was his relative, media sources said.
Earlier this year in April the court had reopened five cases in connection with the 1984 Sikh pogroms that were closed in 1986. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also filed appeals against the acquittal of Kumar and life sentence to ex-councilor Balwan Khokhar.
The high court had taken a suo motu cognizance for the sake of doing so during course of the arguments, Sajjan Kumar’s lawyers mentioned these matters as precedents since co-accused Mahender Yadav, Balwan Khokhar and Kishan Khokhar had been acquitted in them.
On the one hand the court claimed to have noted that eyewitnesses had not been examined in those cases and there was a “travesty” since investigation was not done properly. But on the other hand majority of the cases re-opened by SIT formed by the Union Home Ministry were closed this year on the directives of Indian Supreme Court. Again the Delhi High Court with its suo motu cognizance of the “errors” in the 1986 trial judgment added that key eyewitnesses were not examined and cases were closed “very rapidly” seemingly without proper investigation and trial, notes Indian Express (IE).
India’s Attorney General had earlier claimed in SCI that the SIT in as many as 263 cases had no case files and there was no trace of any victim or witness.