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NEW DELHI: Holding that the prosecution failed to meet the standard of proof required, a Delhi court acquitted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar Thursday in a case arising from the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, reports Koushiki Saha. Kumar, however, will remain in jail as he is serving a life term in another riot-linked case where he was convicted by the Delhi high court.”A witness who has suffered the loss of a family member at the hands of a criminal would not spare such a criminal and would try to name the criminal at the earliest opportunity,” special judge Dig Vinay Singh observed.
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt must, asserts judge
Special judge Dig Vinay Singh said that there was “no reliable evidence” to establish ex-Cong MP Sajjan Kumar’s presence at the crime scene on Nov 1, 1984, or to show that he instigated a mob, was part of an unlawful assembly, or entered into any criminal conspiracy.Reiterating settled principles of criminal law, the court noted that “a man may be convicted of 100 crimes, but to be held guilty of the 101st crime, proof beyond a reasonable doubt in that crime is required”.The case stemmed from allegations of large-scale violence in west Delhi’s Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas following the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi on Oct 31, 1984. FIRs were registered much later, in 2015, accusing Kumar of leading mobs involved in killings, arson, looting and destruction of Sikh property, including setting fire to a gurdwara. He was booked under multiple provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including murder, attempted murder, rioting armed with deadly weapons, promoting enmity between groups, defiling a place of worship and dacoity.A central issue before the court was the reliability of the prosecution’s evidence. After examining the testimonies of 18 prosecution witnesses, the court found that many were either “hearsay witnesses” or individuals who named the accused for the first time decades after the incident. One key witness admitted that she had not personally witnessed the incident involving Sohan Singh and his son-in-law and had not seen Kumar at the scene.The witness further conceded that neither she nor her family had named Kumar in any statement prior to 2016, despite his well-known identity in the area, naming him first time before the court. Judge Singh held that such testimony was barred by hearsay principles and did not qualify as “res gestae” evidence under Section 4 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, as the statements were neither contemporaneous with nor immediately connected to the incident.While accepting the prosecution’s argument, led by Additional Public Prosecutor Manish Rawat- that victims suffered “severe injuries, loss of life, destruction of property, and police inaction,” the court still expressed its dissatisfaction over the prolonged silence of the witnesses for three long decades, warning that reliance on such delayed identification could result in a “travesty.”Though Judge Singh acknowledged the trauma faced by families affected by the riots, but clarified that emotions could not override legal standards. He held that since Kumar was an Ex-Member of Parliament the Court cannot lower the standard of proof required in the case in hand to hold him guilty.Noting that it was impossible for Kumar to present at multiple locations simultaneously, the court indicated that given Kumar’s wide involvement in similar cases at the relevant time, he had been named in this case as well.In Feb last year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh during the riots in Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar area. He is currently lodged in Tihar Jail, where he is also serving a separate life term imposed by the Delhi high court in 2018 for the killing of five Sikhs in Palam Colony during the 1984 riots.The FIR was registered in 1992 pursuant to recommendations of the Justice J D Jain-DK Aggarwal Committee. After earlier investigations resulted in closure reports, the case was reopened following the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in 2015. The FIR lodged in Janakpuri pertains to the Nov 1, 1984, killing of two men – Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh.The second FIR was lodged in the case of one Gurcharan Singh, who was allegedly set ablaze by a mob on Nov 2, 1984.While a Delhi court in Aug 2023 dropped charges of murder and criminal conspiracy in both cases, it proceeded to try him for rioting and promoting enmity between communities. Go to Source
