New Delhi, Jan 22: A Delhi court on Thursday acquitted former Congress Member of Parliament Sajjan Kumar in a case relating to the alleged instigation of violence in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas of the capital during the 1984 Sikh Massacre Case.
The acquittal was pronounced by Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh, who delivered a brief oral ruling.
The court said that a detailed order would be issued subsequently.
The case stemmed from two FIRs registered by a Special Investigation Team in February 2015 following complaints of violence during the riots.
In August 2023, the trial court framed charges against Kumar for offences relating to rioting and promoting enmity, while charges of murder and criminal conspiracy were dropped.
One of the FIRs pertained to an incident in Janakpuri on November 1, 1984, in which two persons, Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh, were killed.
The second FIR related to an incident in Vikaspuri on November 2, 1984, where Gurcharan Singh was allegedly set on fire.
Kumar is currently lodged in jail and is serving a life sentence awarded by a trial court on February 25 last year in a separate 1984 riots case concerning the killing of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh in the Saraswati Vihar area.
In that case, the court held that while the killing of two innocent persons was a grave offence, it did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category warranting the death penalty.
The trial court had also noted that the Saraswati Vihar case formed part of the same chain of events for which Kumar had earlier been convicted by the Delhi High Court on December 17, 2018, for his role in the deaths of five persons during rioting in Palam Colony following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
According to the report of the Nanavati Commission, constituted to inquire into the 1984 violence, a total of 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi in connection with the riots, which claimed the lives of 2,733 people.
Of these, about 240 FIRs were closed as “untraced”, around 250 cases resulted in acquittals, and only 28 FIRs led to convictions.
Approximately 400 persons were convicted overall, including around 50 for offences of murder. (Agencies)
