1984 riots: Delhi High Court to hear Sajjan Kumar's appeal against conviction, life term in November 

The Delhi High Court on Friday said it will hear in November an appeal by former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar challenging his conviction and life imprisonment in a murder case connected to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

The appeal was scheduled to come up for hearing before a bench of Justices Vivek Chaudhary and Manoj Jain, which did not hold the court. The matter has now been fixed for November 19.

Kumar was awarded life imprisonment on February 25 by a trial court here, which said that the convict's old age and illness weighed in favour of a lesser sentence instead of the death penalty.

The trial court said that though the killing of “two innocent persons” in the case were no less an offence, it was not a “rarest of rare case” warranting the imposition of the death penalty.

The case relates to the killing of Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh on November 1, 1984.

The offence of murder attracts a maximum punishment of the death penalty and minimum of life imprisonment.

The trial court had said that the case at hand was part of the same incident and could be seen as a continuity of the incident for which Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court on December 17, 2018.

He was then found guilty of having caused the death of five people during a similar incident of rioting post the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The trial court, therefore, awarded life imprisonment to Kumar for being part of the mob which set afire the house of the victims and “brutally killed” the two victims, besides looting their belongings.

It had also imposed a fine of around Rs 2.4 lakh on Kumar.