The Delhi high court on Monday admitted an appeal filed by the Delhi police against a city court’s 2022 order acquitting an individual in connection with a case stemming from the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The case pertained to the November 1, 1984, murder of a man named Sher Singh in Delhi by two people, Babu Lal and Shiv Shankar, in Mangolpuri. The FIR was filed in 1992 under sections 147 (rioting)/148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon) /149 (unlawful assembly) /302 (murder)/307 (attempt to murder) /436 (mischief by fire) /395 (dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code against the two, but proceedings against Shiv Shankar had abated after his death in August 2010.
“Considering the case in hand, it is a fit case for grant of leave to appeal,” a bench of justices Prathiba M Singh and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta said in the order, while fixing May 28 as the next date of hearing.
The court admitted the appeal filed in 2023, days after it had refused to accept the Delhi police’s appeal against the 30-year old city court’s order to acquit 16 people in connection with the riots. While acknowledging the loss of human life and property during the riots, the court in its ruling passed on February 25 had said that the delay in filing the appeal could not be condoned.
The Supreme Court on February 17 had questioned the long delay by the Delhi high court in deciding the appeals in the riots cases, some of which were pending for over seven years and had called for a report within a month. A bench headed by justice AS Oka had also directed the Delhi police to expedite the filing of appeals before the top court against six high court orders of acquittal.
The Delhi police had approached the high court against the city court’s December 16, 2022 order acquitting the two individuals in a murder and rioting.
In its 30-page order, the city court had acquitted Babu Lal on the grounds that the witnesses had failed to identify them. “I am therefore of the view that the prosecution has failed in discharging its burden to prove the case against the accused, that he was a part of the mob, beyond all reasonable doubts. The accused is therefore acquitted of all the charges,” the court had said in the order.
In its petition before the high court, the Delhi police represented by additional public prosecutor Ritesh Bahri along with advocate Divya Yadav had contended that the witnesses had supported the case of the prosecution. He further submitted that the high court in July last year had already condoned the delay of 125 days.
To be sure, the city court on February 25, had sentenced former Congress parliamentarian Sajjan Kumar to life imprisonment following his conviction in the brutal murder of a father and son during the riots in Saraswati Vihar, Delhi, culminating a roughly four-decade-long battle for justice. The verdict marked the second life term handed out to Kumar, 79, for his role in the deadly riots. Special judge Kaveri Baweja acknowledged the “brutal and reprehensible” nature of the crime but ruled out the death penalty, citing Kumar’s satisfactory conduct in prison, his advanced age, ailments, and potential for reform. The court concluded that the case did not meet the threshold of the “rarest of rare” category that warrants capital punishment.
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