DELHI HC DEFERS VERDICT ON SAJJAN PLEA

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Monday deferred the verdict on Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s plea challenging framing of charges in a 1984-riot case.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Monday deferred the pronouncement of its verdict on Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s plea challenging framing of charges in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, saying further hearing was required. The case pertains to the killing of six persons in Sultanpuri (Delhi).

“While preparing the judgment, I felt this matter should be heard further. I am posting the case to May 15 for further hearing,” justice Suresh Kait said.

Besides charges of murder and rioting, a lower court had in July 2010 framed charges for the offence of spreading enmity between two communities against Kumar and four other accused — Brahmanand Gupta, Peru, Khushal Singh and Ved Prakash — in connection with the riots which broke out after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The HC had reserved the case for orders after hearing Kumar’s lawyer, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and victims in December last year.

The trial court is scheduled to pronounce the verdict on Tuesday in a case against Kumar and five others in which the former Outer Delhi MP is accused of instigating the mob to kill Sikhs in the Delhi Cantonment area here during the 1984 riots.

In the Sultanpuri case, Prakash and Gupta had also moved the high court against the framing of charges. Complainant Sheela Kaur had filed a crossappeal in the high court, seeking to invoke the charges of criminal conspiracy against Kumar and other accused in the case.

The CBI had filed two chargesheets against Kumar and others in January 2010 in the cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of justice GT Nanavati Commission, which probed the sequence of events leading to the riots.