The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a petition by former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar challenging the framing of charges against him by a trial court here in an anti-Sikh riot case of the Delhi Cantonment area.
Riots had broken out across the Capital in the wake of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
Kumar had sought quashing of the trial court order framing charges of criminal conspiracy, murder and other offences under the Indian Penal Code submitting that the Delhi police had already closed the case against him, therefore, two parallel proceedings could not go against him in the same matter.
Other grounds on which he urged the court to quash the charges were delay in lodging of FIR and recording of statements of the witnesses.
However, Justice Vipin Sanghi of the Court dismissed his submissions saying that the Delhi Police had no locus to file a closure report in the case because the investigation the charges against the accused had been transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation before filing of the closure report.
The Court also pulled up the Delhi Police for this illegality and directed the city Police Commissioner to order an inquiry into it and take action against the erring officials.
``A copy of this judgment be forwarded to the Commissioner of Police. He is directed to examine the justifiability of the action of the Delhi Police in filing the untraced report….. after the transfer of the investigation to the CBI, and if no satisfactory explanation is found, to fix the responsibility and to take appropriate disciplinary action against the officers responsible for unauthorisedly filing the cancellation report…,’’ the Court said.
The Court further asked the Police Commissioner to place the inquiry report and the action taken before it within six months.
The Court also directed the trial curt to expedite the trial and not grant any unnecessary adjournments either to the prosecution or to the accused.
``It is hoped that the trial shall be completed and the judgment delivered by the trial court within one year from today,’’ the Court said.
The case against Kumar was registered on recommendations by the Nanavati commission in 2005.
Five persons, Kehar Singh, his son Gurpreet Singh, Raghvinder Singh, Narender Pal Singh and Kuldeep Singh had been killed in the riot.
