1984 riots: Sajjan Kumar seeks to declare CBI probe illegal

New Delhi: Congress leader Sajjan Kumar today sought to declare as "illegal" the probe and chargesheets filed by the CBI in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against him. This comes days after the Gauhati High Court said that the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI is 'unconstitutional' and does not have powers to investigate crimes.

Mr Kumar's counsel mentioned the Gauhati High Court's judgement before a Delhi court today and said if the CBI itself is unconstitutional, its probe and chargesheets are also illegal.

The judge, however, said the effect of this judgement is not clear at this stage as it is too early and asked the counsel to proceed with the case.

The court also asked the defence counsel to advance his arguments on the two applications filed by Mr Kumar and other accused in the case.

The court gave November 15 as the next day of hearing.

The court had earlier framed various charges including murder and rioting against Mr Kumar, Brahmanand Gupta, Peru, Khushal Singh and Ved Prakash in connection with killing of a man in Sultanpuri area in the riots that had occurred after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. One of the accused, Khushal Singh, has died.

The CBI had earlier said that though the chargesheet pertains to killing of six people, it was only restricting to the charge relating to murder of Surjit Singh and not of other deceased in respect of whom the trial had already taken place.

The court is yet to fix a date for beginning the trial by recording statements of prosecution witnesses.

Mr Kumar and three other accused had moved an application seeking removal of CBI's nine witnesses in the case claiming they were "irrelevant".

The plea was opposed by senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing for the victims', saying that the nine witnesses were very important and leaving them out will be miscarriage of justice.

In the other application, the accused had also sought summoning of judicial records of two riot cases of Sultanpuri area which were decided in 2002 and 2003 as some of the witnesses of this case had also deposed during those trials.

Mr Kumar was not an accused in both the cases which had resulted in acquittal of others.

In July 2010, the trial court had framed charges of murder and rioting against the accused in connection with the case of killing of Surjit Singh in Delhi's Sultanpuri area.

The trial court had also framed charges for the offence of spreading enmity between two communities against the accused in the case.

CBI had filed two chargesheets against Mr Kumar and others in January 2010 in the riots cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of Justice G T Nanavati Commission which had probed the sequence of events leading to the violence.