A big smile creased the face of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar when Additional District and Sessions Judge Manju Goel read out her judgment acquitting him in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Boundless joy also infected nine others who were let off with Kumar. In all 12 were acquitted, but three of them had died during the course of the trial. 

"All the accused have been acquitted. The prosecution has failed to prove the charges against them. There are material contradictions between the prosecution's case and the evidence," the judge said, while reading out the operative portion of the judgment.

But disappointment and anger was writ large on the faces of over dozen Sikh men and women who had converged from all parts of the capital to hear the judge speak. "This is just ridiculous," one of them said.

"I had full faith in the judiciary. Today the court has upheld my innocence," an emotionally charged Sajjan Kumar told rediff.com when asked for his reaction.

The Delhi police had made elaborate security arrangements around the court premises, and whisked away Sajjan Kumar after his short interaction with the waiting mediapersons.

"We are happy that the court has upheld our defence plea that Sajjan Kumar and 12 others were innocent. Our case became strong when the original petitioner Anwar Kaur turned hostile along with some of the other key witnesses," claimed I U Khan, advocate for Sajjan Kumar.

According to Khan the biggest factor that decided the case in their favour was that the complaint was filed five years after the incident.

The case was filed in 1989 after the court condoned the delay in registration of the First Information Report. The chargesheet was filed in 1994 and charges were framed in September 1996.

Kumar had two cases against him. One filed on November 1, 1984 and the other filed by Anwar Kaur. The Central Bureau of Investigation probed the second case.

Sajjan Kumar was booked under section 153A for spreading communal disharmony and sections 147, 148, 143, 149, 302, 307, 435, 455, 436 and 395 of the Indian Penal Code.

R M Tewari, counsel for the CBI, said that a decision about challenging the verdict in the high court would be taken after going through the judgment.