New Delhi: A Delhi Court on Monday pulled up the
CBI for failing to issue notice to the complainant before
filing the closure report against congress leader Sajjan Kumar
in a 1984 anti-Sikh riot case.
"It is legal requirement. It is mandatory. You should
inform the complainant for not taking action on the matter,"
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma
said.
The court made the observation when the CBI failed to put
forth any record to show that it had issued any notice to the
complainant Harvinder Kaur before filing the closure report in
the court.
The court, however, took the closure report filed by the
CBI on record and issued notice to Kaur for February 23.
The court, meanwhile, put the two cahrgesheets filed
against Sajjan Kumar and others for February 1.
Scores of Sikhs have gathered outside the Karkardooma
court complex to protest the alleged delay in taking action
against the accused leader.
They also burnt effigy of Kumar and raised slogans.
Extra security arrangements, besides deployment of
Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), were made outside the court
premises.
Water canons were also used to disperse Sikh protesters.
The probe agency had on January 13 filed a closure report
citing insufficient evidence to seek prosecution of Kumar in a
case registered with the Mongolpuri police station in which
one Iqbal Singh was killed in the carnage.
The CBI had also chargesheeted Kumar in two separate
cases of allegedly making provocative speeches, leading to the
killings of 12 people in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The cases, in which the chargesheets were filed against
Kumar, 62, and several others, were registered in police
stations in Sultanpuri and Delhi Cantonment following the
killing of seven and five persons respectively in the riots
that had broken out after the assassination of the then Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
CBI, which probed the cases, sought prosecution of Sajjan
Kumar for various provisions of Indian Penal Code, including
that of murder and rioting, for allegedly making provocative
speeches during the riots.
In both the chargesheets, Kumar, a former MP from Outer
Delhi Constituency, has also been accused of promoting enmity
between classes under 153-A of the Indian Penal Code.
Five persons named in the chargesheet in the case
relating to rioting and killings of seven persons at
Sultanpuri in north Delhi are Congress leader Kumar, Ved
Prakash Pial, Peru, Khushal Singh and Brahma Nand Gupta.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 18, 2010, 16:12