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The Delhi high court on Friday reserved its order on a plea of senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar against a trial court order framing charges against him in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case related to the killings of six persons.
"The order is reserved," Justice Suresh Kait said after senior advocate H S Phoolka, counsel for complainant Sheela Kaur, concluded the arguments opposing Kumar's plea for dropping charges against him.
Besides the Congress leader, co-accused Ved Prakash Pial alias Vedu Pradhan and Brahmanand Gupta had also moved the high court against framing of charnges against them in the case.
Complainant Sheela Kaur had filed a cross-appeal in the high court seeking to invoke the charges of criminal conspiracy against Kumar and other four accused in the case.
Justice Kait reserved verdicts on others' pleas also. During hearing, Phoolka cited an apex court judgement to seek protection for the complainant and other witnesses saying they are poor while the accused are 'very powerful'.
Earlier in July 2010, a lower court had framed charges against Kumar, Brahmanand Gupta, Peru, Khushal Singh and Ved Prakash in connection with the case in which six persons were killed in Sultanpuri in anti-Sikhs riots that erupted in Delhi and elsewhere after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.
Besides charges of murder and rioting, the court had also framed charges for the offence of spreading enmity between two communities against various accused in the case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had filed two charge sheets against Kumar and others on January 13 in the riots cases registered in 2005 on the recommendation of the Justice G T Nanavati commission which probed the sequence of events leading to the riots.