Sajjan Kumar acquitted in a 1984 riots case, but legal options against him not exhausted yet

The Times of India

May 3, 2013, 12.00 AM IST

The wave of protests that has followed the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, in a case related to the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, must be seen for what it is: a genuine reaction against both the verdict itself and against the inordinate judicial delays that have effectively denied justice to the victims of that utterly reprehensible carnage. All the same the protestors need to be circumspect, if only because legal avenues are still open to them to ensure that the perpetrators of the riots are finally brought to book. Indeed, senior advocate HS Phoolka, who has led a valiant struggle on behalf of the victims, has already announced that he will file an appeal in a higher court.

This is where the reasons given by the judge to justify Kumar's acquittal will be subjected to critical scrutiny. Those reasons pertain to the alleged unreliability of the witnesses. All three of them named Sajjan Kumar as an accused for the first time more than two decades after the riots. Jagdish Kaur did that in an affidavit she presented to the Justice G T Nanavati Commission in 2004, Jagsher Singh in 2007 and Nirpreet Kaur in a statement to the CBI also in 2007. It will now be up to the higher court to determine if the reasons were sound enough to let Sajjan Kumar off the hook.

The sooner it does so the better, for the victims are truly at the end of their tether. A speedy conclusion of three other cases pending against Sajjan Kumar is equally in order: one challenging his acquittal in 2002, another involving his role in the Sultanpur riots and a third related to a 'missing document' from an FIR mentioning his name as an accused filed in a police station in 1987. A charge-sheet was prepared in this latter case in 1992 but it has not been taken into account so far.

In all these instances the conduct of the Delhi police during the 1984 riots is bound to be closely questioned. The court that acquitted Sajjan Kumar in fact observed that it was tantamount to a 'serious lapse'. Against this backdrop the protestors would do well to build up public pressure to ensure that the judicial process is speeded up.