1984 riots case: SC refuses to grant interim bail to convict Sajjan Kumar on medical grounds

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Kumar, argued that interim bail be granted to Kumar on health grounds as he has been in jail for 20 months and has lost nearly 16 kg weight.
Sajjan Kumar (File Photo | PTI)
Sajjan Kumar (File Photo | PTI)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the interim bail plea of former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, serving life imprisonment in an 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, filed on health grounds. A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde, and also comprising Justice A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, said it was not inclined to accept Kumar’s plea.

“We will hear you finally someday but cannot grant you bail like this,’ said the bench. Kumar, through his counsel Vikas Singh, had sought interim bail on health grounds saying he has been in jail for 20 months, has lost nearly 16 kg weight and needs to recover from pre-existing ailments.

Singh said Kumar would abide by all the conditions which would be imposed by the court. Senior advocate H S Phoolka, who has been appearing for some of the riots victims, opposed the plea and said the required treatment is already being given to Kumar at hospital.

Kumar is serving life imprisonment after the Delhi High Court had convicted him and others in the case on December 17, 2018. “We are not treating the judgement (of the Delhi High Court which convicted and sentenced Kumar in the case) as faulty merely because it has reversed earlier verdict. We will hear you finally someday,” the bench said.

The high court had reversed the acquittal of Kumar by the trial court in 2013 in the case related to the killings of five Sikhs in the Raj Nagar Part-I area in Palam Colony in southwest Delhi on November 1-2, 1984, and burning down of a gurdwara in Raj Nagar Part- II. The riots had broken out after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her bodyguards.

On May 13, the apex court had dismissed the plea by Kumar who had sought interim bail or parole on health grounds, saying he did not need hospitalization as per medical report at the moment. In its verdict, the high court had convicted and sentenced Kumar to imprisonment for “remainder of his natural life” in the case saying the riots were a “crime against humanity” perpetrated by those who enjoyed “political patronage” and aided by an “indifferent” law enforcement agency. 

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