The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s bail application in the 1984 anti-Sikh violence case in August, PTI reported. The Delhi High Court had in December 2018 sentenced Kumar to life imprisonment and held him guilty of murder, promoting enmity between groups, and defiling public property.
The court said it will hear the plea in the first week of August. The Central Bureau of Investigation told the court that the 73-year-old’s crime was of a “gruesome nature” and described it as “genocide”.
The Delhi High Court’s verdict had reversed a lower court’s 2013 judgement acquitting Kumar. He was sent to jail after he surrendered before a trial court on December 31. He had resigned from the Congress after his conviction.
On April 8, the CBI had opposed Kumar’s bail plea in the Supreme Court while describing him as the kingpin of the violence. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the CBI, had said a decision to grant Kumar bail would be a “travesty of justice” as he is facing trial in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case at the Patiala House district court.
The violence against Sikhs in early November 1984 had followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The case in which Kumar was convicted is related to the murder of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment’s Raj Nagar Part-I area and arson at a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.
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