The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would hear former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar's petition against conviction and life-term imprisonment in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case after the Diwali break. The Diwali break at the Supreme Court will be from October 20 to 26.
Justices J K Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi, while hearing the matter, asked the counsel for the parties to specify about the allegations, testimony of witnesses and findings by the trial court and the high court in the case.
"When the reversal was made, what persuaded the high court to make a reversal," the bench said. The high court had set aside the trial court's 2010 verdict which acquitted Sajjan Kumar in the case.
While senior advocate R S Cheema appeared for the CBI, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan represented Sajjan Kumar in the top court. Besides Kumar's appeal, the pleas of co-convicts Balwan Khokhar and Girdhari Lal were also listed for hearing in the Supreme Court.
The case relates to the killing of five Sikhs in the Raj Nagar Part-I area of Delhi Cantonment on November 1-2, 1984 and the burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.
Sajjan Kumar had surrendered before a trial court in New Delhi on December 31, 2018 to serve the sentence in pursuance of the high court's December 17, 2018 judgment awarding him life imprisonment for the "remainder of his natural life". After his conviction, he resigned from the Congress.
He has been convicted for offences of criminal conspiracy and abetment in commission of crimes of murder, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of communal harmony and defiling and destruction of a gurdwara. The high court also upheld the conviction and varying sentences awarded by a trial court to five others, including Khokhar and Lal.
Also read: Former MP Sajjan Kumar convicted in 1984 anti-Sikh riots case
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