BY IANS,
New Delhi : A city court Tuesday deferred the hearing in a case relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh violence here in which Congress leader Jagdish Tytler is an accused, after a group of victims pleaded that they should be heard.
Moving an application on behalf of the Victims’ Association and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit, they urged the court to clarify their locus standi in the case and then hear the arguments.
Filing the application through senior advocate H.S. Phoolka, the Victims’ Association also pleaded that the deputy inspector general and the joint director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should also be summoned for giving clarification as on what basis a ‘clean chit’ was given to Tytler, a former central minister.
Lakhwinder Kaur, wife of Badal Singh who died in the riots, pleaded before the court that she should be given a copy of a closure report of investigations against Tytler.
The court will now consider the two applications May 23.
CBI had April 9 filed a closure report giving clean chit to Tytler, who is accused of having incited mobs to attack Sikhs in the aftermath of the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
The CBI’s move to drop investigations against Tytler had led to a volley of protests and the Congress party was forced to drop him as a Lok Sabha candidate from the North East Delhi constituency.
The investigating agency in the earlier hearing had raised questions over the jurisdiction of the court stating that it has no power to hear the case as it involved charges of murder, which can be tried in a sessions court only.
Before the hearing was deferred Tuesday, a massive crowd of Sikhs gathered outside the Karkardooma court complex though police had been deployed there in strength.
Sikh protesters stormed the court complex and also tried to break through police barricades.