Delhi police conducted sham investigation in '84 riots: CBI
The CBI on Friday told the Supreme Court that the special anti-riots cell of the Delhi Police had conducted "sham investigations and farce prosecutions" in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots to apparently shield senior Congress leader and former MP Sajjan Kumar, a key accused. In an affidavit, the agency has urged the apex court to vacate the August 13 stay granted by it and pleaded it "seriously prejudiced" the prosecution against the Congress leader. A bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan while taking on record the affidavit posted to September 7 the final hearing of the agency's plea to prosecute Kumar for the riots under Delhi Cantonment police station in which 60 people were killed. "Mr Dave nobody is insensitive," the bench said when senior counsel Dushayant Dave appearing for one of the victims asked the court to vacate the stay on the ground that it involved the emotions of thousands of people. The CBI, in its affidavit, said, "It will also be adjudged during trial as to whether the petitioner (Kumar) has played a role in causing delay. It cannot also be lost sight of the fact that 24 complaints were investigated in one FIR about scores of deaths and because of sham investigation and farce prosecutions, there has been failure of justice for which victims are aggrieved." The agency questioned the intention of the anti-riot cell of Delhi police in filing status reports on July 31, 2008 in the trial court when the investigation was already been conducted by the CBI. "There was no occasion for the Delhi Police to deal with the case once the entire material was supplied to the CBI by the government of India from the custody of Delhi Police (on October 10, 2005)," the agency said. The CBI also accused the Delhi police of filing another status report in the trial court on July 31, 2008 and pointed out that the trial judge and the Delhi High Court have happily termed it as "clandestine attempt to hush up the matter". The CBI accused Kumar of attempting to drag the trial on one pretext or the other and said his plea for staying the trial was another such attempt. "The present petition has been filed with the only object of delaying the trial. It is well settled that at the present stage of framing of charge, the material on record has not to be examined meticulously by weighing it in golden scale," the CBI said. In other words, the agency argued that whether the fresh charges framed against Kumar by the trial judge on May 15, 2010 was justified or not has to be examined at the stage of the trial. "A perusal of final report (chargesheet) would show that there are direct allegations which are proved by evidence against the petitioner (Kumar) about his involvement in the commission of crime in the present case," the affidavit stated. Citing the apex court's earlier judgements, the CBI said that at the stage of framing charges, no weight is to be attached to the probable defence of the accused as such matters has to be dealt at the trial.
Post new comment