Sajjan Kumar case: HS slams CBI's conduct

A Delhi Court on Monday pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation for failing to issue a notice to the complainant before filing the closure report against Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riot case.

"It is legal requirement. It is mandatory. You should inform the complainant for not taking action on the matter," Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma said. The court made the observation when the CBI failed to put forth any record to show that it had issued any notice to the complainant Harvinder Kaur before filing the closure report in the court.

The court, however, took the closure report filed by the CBI on record and issued notice to Kaur for February 23. The court, meanwhile, put off the two chargesheets filed against Sajjan Kumar and others for February 1. Scores of Sikhs have gathered outside the Karkardooma court complex to protest the alleged delay in taking action against the accused leader. They also burnt effigy of Kumar and raised slogans. Extra security arrangements, besides deployment of Sashastra Seema Bal, were made outside the court premises.

Water canons were also used to disperse Sikh protesters.The probe agency had on January 13 filed a closure report citing insufficient evidence to seek prosecution of Kumar in a case registered with the Mongolpuri police station in which one Iqbal Singh was killed in the carnage. The CBI had also chargesheeted Kumar in two separate cases of allegedly making provocative speeches, leading to the killings of 12 people in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The cases, in which the chargesheets were filed against Kumar and several others, were registered in police stations in Sultanpuri and Delhi Cantonment following the killing of seven and five persons respectively in the riots that had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

The CBI, which probed the cases, sought prosecution of Sajjan Kumar for various provisions of Indian Penal Code, including that of murder and rioting, for allegedly making provocative speeches during the riots. In both the chargesheets, Kumar, a former MP from Outer Delhi Constituency, has also been accused of promoting enmity between classes under 153-A of the Indian Penal Code. Five persons named in the chargesheet in the case relating to rioting and killings of seven persons at Sultanpuri in north Delhi are Congress leader Kumar, Ved Prakash Pial, Peru, Khushal Singh and Brahma Nand Gupta.

Besides Kumar, those named as accused in the murder of five persons in Delhi Cantt during the 1984 riots are Balwan Khokhar, Mahender Yadav, Maha Singh, Captain Bhagmal, Santosh Rani, Girdhari Lal and Krishna Khokhar. All the three cases were registered on the recommendation of Justice G T Nanavati Commission which had inquired into the sequence of events leading to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi on 31, October 1984. The Commission had submitted its report in 2005.