New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday said it will hear in November the appeal filed by former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar against his conviction and life sentence in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots-related murder case.
The matter was listed before a bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain, which did not hold court. It will now be taken up on November 19.
Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court on February 25, which noted that while the crime involved the killing of “two innocent persons,” his advanced age and poor health were considered mitigating factors, leading to a lesser sentence instead of the death penalty.
The case pertains to the murders of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh on November 1, 1984. The court observed that the offence, though grave, did not fall under the “rarest of rare” category that warrants the death penalty.
The trial court also noted that this case formed part of the same chain of events for which Kumar had already been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court on December 17, 2018—for his role in the killing of five people during the 1984 riots following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
In the present case, the court found Kumar guilty of being part of a mob that set the victims’ house on fire, looted their belongings, and “brutally killed” the two men. He was also fined ₹2.4 lakh.
According to the Nanavati Commission report, which investigated the 1984 riots, 587 FIRs were registered in Delhi. Of these, 240 were closed as untraced, 250 led to acquittals, and only 28 cases resulted in convictions, with around 400 people convicted, including 50 for murder.
Kumar, a prominent Congress leader and MP at the time, was also accused in another case related to the killing of five people in Palam Colony on November 1–2, 1984. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court in that case as well, and his appeal against that verdict is currently pending before the Supreme Court.
