New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday asked CBI to
provide a copy of witnesses` statements to a victim in a 1984
anti-Sikh riots case allegedly involving former union minister
Jagdish Tytler to enable her to file a petition against the
clean chit to the Congress leader.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit
directed the probe agency to furnish a copy of four statements
and three different affidavits of witness Surinder Singh and
the statement of another witness Jasbir Singh, besides the
copy of closure report to widow Lakhwinder Kaur.
The court`s order came after Kaur`s counsel Rebecca M
John and Brinda Grover pointed out that they were not supplied
with the documents including the statements of the witnesses.
CBI counsel Sanjay Kumar, who initially tried to oppose
the plea of the victim`s counsel, readily agreed to provide
the copies on the court`s direction.
The court, meanwhile, also asked Kaur`s counsel to file
their protest petition within a week and provide a copy of it
to CBI so that the matter could be fixed for arguments.
It fixed the matter relating to the killing of three
persons on November one, 1984, near Gurudwara Pulbangash in
north Delhi in the aftermath of the then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi`s assassination, for further proceedings on March 23.
CBI had on February 10 completed its arguments on the
closure report giving clean chit to Tytler on April 2 last
claiming lack of sufficient evidence against him and terming
the witnesses` statement as "false and concocted".
Surinder (already dead) and Jasbir, residing in
California now, had made statements only to implicate
Tytler, CBI had alleged.
The Delhi High Court had on February 8 directed the lower
courts to wind up the trial of all pending anti-Sikh riots
cases, including those related to Congress leaders Sajjan
Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, within six months.
The alleged role of Tytler in the case relating to the
killing of three persons including Kaur`s husband Badal Singh
on November one, 1984, near Gurudwara Pulbangash in north
Delhi, was re-investigated by CBI after a court had earlier
refused to accept a closure report filed by the agency against
him in December, 2007.
PTI
