Kumar, who at the time of the riots was a Congress MP, was tried by a special MP/MLA court on charges of rioting, arson, murder and criminal conspiracy, among others.
The allegations stemmed from a complaint that accused Kumar of the murders of the father and brother-in-law of Harvinder Singh Kohli, the complainant in the case. The family was allegedly escaping from Vikaspuri towards Janakpuri after rioters started looting and burning properties in the area.
Kumar is currently in jail after he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the HC in 2018 in a case related to the killing of five Sikhs and the burning down of a gurdwara on November 1-2, 1984. His appeal against the conviction is pending before the Supreme Court. Last February, a Delhi court had sentenced Kumar to life imprisonment in a case in which he was accused of leading a mob that burned alive one Jaswant Singh and his son Tarundeep Singh in Saraswati Vihar on November 1, 1984, while looting and destroying their houses.
Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh of Rouse Avenue court, in his judgment on Thursday, primarily ordered for the acquittal owing to the “absence of admissible, reliable evidence” proving Kumar’s “presence at the crime scene or his participation in any other manner”. Kohli, too, had passed away before he could be examined by the court.
The court reasoned that Kumar was not named as an accused by eight of the 18 prosecution witnesses for over 32 years, including Koli. Some of these eight witnesses in fact named Kumar as an accused only during the course of trial. “Not naming the accused in the affidavit or in the statement of the complainant is an important factor while assessing the reliability of the prosecution witnesses,” the court ruled.
“Unfortunately, most of the witnesses examined by the prosecution are hearsay, and/or those witnesses who failed to name the accused for three long decades. Relying on the identification of the accused by such persons would be risky and may lead to a travesty,” it concluded.
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Refusing to accept the prosecution’s argument that Kumar has already been convicted earlier and has been found guilty of similar offences, the court observed, “A man may be convicted of 100 crimes, but to be held guilty of the 101st crime, proof beyond a reasonable doubt in that crime is required. One cannot be found guilty merely because in the past he was involved in similar offences. Past criminal background or the commission of other offences are separate and can have some value in sentencing a person, but they cannot be considered by a Court of law in holding a person guilty of another crime.”
It further said, “…this Court has no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has not met the standard of proof required in a criminal trial to prove the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Merely because the accused is an ex-Member of Parliament or that he was involved in similar instances at other locations, this court cannot lower the standard of proof required in this case to hold him guilty.”
“The law remains the same for all criminals, whether they are ordinary men or influential people… there is no satisfactory justification for not naming the accused for three long decades… a witness who has suffered the loss of a family member at the hands of a criminal would not spare such a criminal and would try to name the criminal at the earliest opportunity,” it added.
The court also ruled that testimonies of defence witnesses did not aid Kumar’s case.
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Special Public Prosecutor Manish Rawat, appearing for the State, told The Indian Express that the judgment is likely to be challenged before a higher court. While senior advocate H S Phoolka appeared for the complainant in the case, advocate Anil K Sharma appeared for the accused.
In 1992, an FIR was lodged over the violence in Janakpuri on November 1, 1984. Another FIR was lodged in Vikaspuri on the alleged killing of two men, Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar Singh, the next day.
A common chargesheet was filed in 2022 for both the FIRs. In 2023, Kumar was discharged in the Vikaspuri case, where he was accused of murder. While Kumar was acquitted in the Janakpuri case on Thursday, a review against his discharge in the Vikaspuri case is pending before the Delhi High Court.
The FIRs were lodged following a review in 1990 of riot cases by a committee comprising Justice J D Jain and then retired DGP D K Aggarwal. After an SIT was constituted in 2015 to reinvestigate the serious riot cases, the 1992 FIRs were reinvestigated and a chargesheet was filed.
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More than 2,700 members of the Sikh community were murdered in four days of violence in the Capital in the aftermath of the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Till date, of the 587 FIRs registered in Delhi, only 28 cases have ended in convictions. Thirteen of these convictions have been in murder cases.
