The ghost of 1984 anti-Sikh riots that saw over 4,000 Sikhs being butchered on the roads of Delhi, has come back to haunt the Congress again.
In a major setback to the ruling party ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, a city court on Wednesday ordered re-investigation against senior party leader Jagdish Tytler in the anti-Sikh riot case of 1984.
‘let the investigation be re-opened,’ the judge said while setting aside an order of the magisterial court accepting the CBI report giving a clean chit to Tytler in 2009 .
With the court re-opening the investigation against the former Union Minister, the problems for Tytler and his party have doubled as the cry for justice is expected to gain momentum.
The official figure of the Union Government had said that over 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the riots that had erupted after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. However, various Sikh organizations claim that the figure was somewhere between 4,500 to 5,000.
The court's ruling came on the petition of Biwi lakhwinder Kaur who was a resident of Pul Bangash in 1984. lakhwinder Kaur's plea was against the CBI's exoneration of Tytler. The court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to re-examine eye-witnesses and the people who claimed to have information about the riots.
In a remarkable judgment, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) of Karkardooma courts Anuradha Shukla Bhardwaj set aside the earlier order of a magisterial court that had accepted the CBI's closure report that gave a ‘clean chit’ to Tytler.
The CBI's closure report was filed on April 2, 2009 and a protest petition was filed by the aggrieved parties. It may be recalled that Tytler was fielded by the ruling Congress party from North East parliamentary constituency of Delhi after he got a clean chit from the CBI. His candidature was cancelled amidst strong protests by various Sikh groups and Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Chief JP Agarwal contested from the same seat.
‘The order of the trial court accepting the closure report is set aside. The CBI is directed to conduct the investigation and examine the claimants/eye witnesses in the case,’ the ASJ directed.
HS Phoolka the counsel for the petitioner lakhwinder Kaur put up a strong argument against the closure report of the CBI and submitted that there was ample evidence and material against Tytler and the same was ignored by the investigating agency. Phoolka said that the same evidence was before the trial court too.
Continuing his argument the counsel said that the CBI spent quite some time in examining Tytler but the same agency had no time to record the statements of the eye-witnesses who had seen Tytler when the killings took place. ‘Are they (CBI) investigating on the command of TytlerIJ’ Phoolka asked.
The investigating agency however, sought dismissal of the plea against Tytler as its probe had found that Tytler was not present at the site of the incident that had taken place on November, 1, 1984 at Gurdwara Pul Bangash in North Delhi where three Sikhs were allegedly killed during the riots.
Aggrieved families have accused Tytler of being involved in the killing of Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh near the Gurudwara Pul Bangash. The allegations were re-investigated by the CBI after its closure report was rejected by a court in December 2007. The investigating agency had maintained that Tytler's presence was investigated in detail and it was established that he was not present at Gurdwara Pul Bangash but was at the residence of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at Teen Murti Bhawan.
The counsel for the CBI submitted that the same allegations were re-investigated on the orders of the court and there was no substantial evidence against Tytler and it filed its closure report on April 2, 2009 claiming lack of evidence against Tytler.
The CBI's closure report was accepted by the concerned court on April 27, 2010 saying there was lack of evidence against Tytler. The magistrate had then accepted the closure report saying that Tytler was not present at Gurdwara Pul Bangash and the submissions of CBI were justified by materials evidences that included version of some independent witnesses and the visual tapes.
One of the star witnesses identified as Jasbir Singh who had migrated to California in the United States, had testified before the Justice Nanavati Commission that he had heard Tytler scolding his men for the ‘normal’ killing of the Sikhs. The court had however turned down Jasbir's testimony saying that he had heard Tytler rebuking his men on November 3, 1984 while the said incident had taken place two days before. Some of the witnesses had claimed that they had seen Tytler in and around Pul Bangash and he was openly instigating his henchmen to target Sikhs, a charge that could not be substantiated by the investigating agency.