HC no to Sajjan’s petition for more time to surrender
NEWDELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s plea seeking time till January 30 to surrender after being recently sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1984 anti-sikh riots case.
A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel said it saw no grounds to grant him the relief and rejected his application. “Application is dismissed,” it said.
The same bench had on December 17 convicted and sentenced 73-year-old Kumar to imprisonment for the remainder of his life in the case and had asked him to surrender by December 31.
He had sought more time, till January 30, to surrender saying he has to settle family affairs related to children and property and also needs time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the high court verdict.
The application, filed through advocate Anil Sharma, had said Kumar was “under shock and surprise” since the time he has been convicted and he believes that he is innocent.
The case relates to killing of five Sikhs in Raj Nagar part-i area in Palam Colony in South West Delhi on November 1-2, 1984, and burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar part-ii during that period. The riots had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her two Sikh bodyguards.
The high court in its judgment had said that the riots were a “crime against humanity” perpetrated by those who enjoyed “political patronage” and aided by an “indifferent” law enforcement agency.
It had set aside the trial court’s verdict which had acquitted Kumar in the case.