A Delhi court today deferred till July 14 the pronouncement of order on an application filed by prosecution seeking clarification on whether a charge sheet allegedly involving Congress leader Sajjan Kumar can be clubbed with another 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
District judge Bimla Makin had decided to adjudicate the matter after a sessions judge recused himself from hearing the case. It is the second time in a fortnight that the matter was deferred at the time of delivering the order.
The case would now be heard afresh by a new district judge because the incumbent judicial officer is going to retire on June 30, said court sources.
The judge had reserved the order on June 2 after hearing the arguments at length from the prosecution as well as the victims' counsel.
Additional sessions judge VK Goyal, who earlier heard the arguments on the matter, had on May 21 recused himself
from the case citing personal reasons on the day when he was
to deliver the order.
The district judge, to whom the matter was referred to by ASJ Goyal, had then decided to hear the matter herself after allowing the plea to transfer the case.
She had, however, asked Goyal to spell out the reasons for seeking transfer of the case in a sealed envelop. The district judge had ordered that the documents would not be opened without an order of the Delhi high court.
Riots victims' counsel HS Phoolka said they would move
the Delhi high court to know the reasons as to why ASJ Goyal
had recused himself.
The matter before the district judge pertains to clubbing of a charge sheet, prepared against Congress leader Kumar but never produced before a judicial officer, with another anti-Sikh riots case.
According to the prosecution, the charge sheet was prepared in the case based on FIR number 67/87 in police station Nangloi, naming Sajjan Kumar as accused on April 8, 1992, but it was dumped in the police file and never brought before the court.
Another FIR was registered in 1991 with regard to the killing of five persons in Nangloi here in the riots that took place in the aftermath of the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
Kumar, along with five others, was mentioned as accused in the case, trial of which was already going on, but the police dropped the name of the politician.
This case was clubbed with the FIR (no 67/87) with regard to the killing of four persons in which Kumar was the sole accused. The police prepared the charge sheet in this case but allegedly never produced it before the court to seek prosecution of the accused.
The prosecution had asked whether the clubbing of the charge sheet can be allowed.
