A Delhi court has refused to accept the CBI closure report against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case that gives him a clean chit and asked the agency to probe the case again.
It also noted that witness Abhishek Verma’s statement where he has revealed that Tytler tried to influence witness. The court was hearing a petition filed by Kaur against the CBI’s closure report. The court will now hear the matter on February 2, 2016. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Saurabh Pratap Singh laler ordered the CBI to re-investigate the matter saying that it is essential to find out whether statement given by Abhishek Verma, an arms dealer is true or not.
The court said it’s also necessary to investigate that whether in 1988 Abhishek Verma was editor of magazine ‘India worldwide’. Verma, in his statement, had told the CBI that Tytler had tried to influence one of the witnesses, by giving him a hefty sum of money and promising to settle his son abroad.
The court observed that in his statement, Verma had also disclosed an active role played by Tytler in sending key witness Surinder Singh Granthi’s son Narinder Singh to Canada. It was done as a deal for changing Granthi statement which has helped Tytler to get clean chit in the case.
The CBI now will have to find out whether the statement of Verma is true or not and further, the court also directed to conduct his lie detection test, if required. It also asked CBI to find out how many times Narinder Singh applied for Canadian Visa and to collect the copies of all the relevant documents.
Pertinent questions related to witnesses were raised and the judge ordered to find out whether Narinder Singh ever committed any visas violations in Canada.
“The purpose of investigation is to unearth true facts and CBI may do all that is required to achieve that goal,” said the court, adding that in the interest of justice, investigation in the case will be monitored by the court on bi-monthly basis so that no aspect of the case is left uninvestigated.
Senior lawyer HS Phoolka welcomed the decision and said in view of the seriousness of the offence and also in regard of the victim complainant lakhvinder Kaur, whose husband Badal Singh was killed during the riots, the court should not accept the closure report.