Sajjan to face trial in 3rd riots case
The legal dragnet seems to be tightening on senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar as a city Court on Saturday paved the way for initiation of criminal proceedings against him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case in Nangloi area here.
District Judge S.K. Sarvaria, while rejecting the plea of the Delhi police to club the case involving Kumar with the ongoing trial in another case relating to the 1984 carnage, said, “There is no order on judicial records with regard to clubbing to FIR no 67/87 (allegedly involving Kumar) with FIR no 418/1991.”
The CBI had already filed two chargesheets this year against the leader in Sultanpuri and Delhi Cantonment riots cases. Now, the probe agency will have to file a third chargesheet in court against Kumar, the former outer Delhi MP, in the Nangloi riots case.
The court on Saturday allowed an application filed by the special public prosecutor stating that the chargesheet prepared against the Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in 1992 cannot be clubbed with another case in which the trial was already going on.
The ruling pertains to a chargesheet prepared in 1992 in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case citing sufficient evidence to proceed against Sajjan Kumar but was never brought before a judge to seek his prosecution.
The Delhi police had claimed that the two cases relating to the incidents during the riots following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were clubbed on the legal opinion provided by the prosecution branch.
The prosecutor had said that the police was not empowered to club cases and it was the sole prerogative of the court to decide such issues.
The chargesheet was prepared in the case based on an FIR registered in 1987 at the Nangloi police station naming Kumar as an accused on April 8, 1992, but it was kept in the police files and never brought before the court, the prosecutor had claimed.
The police took the plea that the FIR was clubbed with another riots case in which the trial was already on and in which Kumar was not an accused.
An FIR was registered in 1991 with regard to the killing of four persons in Nangloi here during the 1984 riots.
Kumar, along with five others, was named an accused in the case but the police dropped the name of the politician.
The case (FIR no 67/87) with regard to the killings of five persons allegedly involving Kumar was clubbed with the FIR (418/1991) registered at the Nangloi police station.
In 1994, the Delhi police had filed the chargesheet on FIR no 418/1991 against five accused but did not mention Kumar as an accused.
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