Congress leader Sajjan Kumar should not have been granted anticipatory bail by a trial court in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, the Delhi High Court was today told by a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for the SIT which is probing the charges against him, told Justice Anu Malhotra that witnesses were not coming forward as the Congress leader was not in custody.
Kumar was granted anticipatory bail by a trial court on December 21 last year in a case of killing of three Sikhs during the riots which had occurred after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The ASG argued before the high court that the trial court had erred in granting the relief to the former MP on the ground of lapse of time.
Jain said the witnesses and their families as well as the kin of the victims of the riots had fled to Punjab fearing for their lives and it was only now that they were coming forward.
He said that witnesses would be required to be confronted with Kumar and if he was out of custody, the witnesses would not come forward and gave the example of one such person whose statement was recorded before a court in Chandigarh.
Jain said that truth will remain as such even with the passage of time. He also denied that the reopening of the case was politically motivated.
There are two cases filed against Kumar falling in the jurisdiction of Janakpuri and Vikaspuri police stations in West Delhi.
The complaint in Janakpuri pertains to the killing of two Sikhs, Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh, on November 1, 1984 and in the other, where another Sikh, Gurcharan Singh, was burnt on November 2, 1984 in the jurisdiction of Vikaspuri Police Station. Gurcharan, who was half burnt, had remained bed-ridden for 29 years. He died three years ago.
( Source – PTI )
