1984 anti-Sikh riots: SC to hear Sajjan Kumar’s plea after Diwali break

The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would take up after the Diwali break former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s petition challenging his conviction and life imprisonment in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

The top court will remain closed between October 20 and October 25 for Diwali holidays and will reopen on October 27.

A Bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Vijay Bishnoi asked the counsel for the parties to specify the allegations, testimonies of witnesses and findings of the trial court and the high court in the case.

"When the reversal was made, what persuaded the high court to make a reversal?" the Bench asked. The high court had set aside the trial court's 2010 decision to acquit Kumar in the case.

Besides Kumar, co-convicts Balwan Khokhar and Girdhari Lal have also moved the top court.

The case related to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment's Raj Nagar Part-I area of southwest Delhi on November 1-2, 1984 and burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.

Around 3,000 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed in the anti-Sikh riots that broke out following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her two Sikh bodyguards.

Kumar has been in jail since December 31, 2018 when he surrendered before a trial court in the capital to serve the sentence in pursuance of the high court's December 17, 2018 judgment awarding him life imprisonment for the "remainder of his natural life".

The high court convicted and sentenced Kumar to spend the remainder of his life in jail for the offences of criminal conspiracy and abetment in commission of crimes of murder, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of communal harmony and defiling and destruction of a gurdwara. It had also upheld the conviction and varying sentences awarded by a trial court to five others, including Khokhar and Lal.