Supreme Court rejects 1984 riots convict Sajjan Kumar's plea seeking interim bail on health grounds

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to consider bail plea by former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, who has been serving life term in a 1984 anti Sikh riots case.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde declined to entertain the petition made on health grounds, saying this is no small matter.

The court said his appeal against the conviction and sentence would be considered when the court resumed physical hearings of the matters.

Kumar's counsel senior advocate Vikas Singh that he has been in jail for 20 months and lost 16 kgs weight.

Opposing the plea, victims' counsel senior advocate H S Phoolka said the petitioner was being given required treatment.

Earlier in May, the top court refused him interim bail, saying his medical report of the petitioner did not suggest he required hospitalisation.

Kumar, represented by senior advocate Vikas Singh, had then claimed that his life term would be converted to death penalty, if he died. He was suffering from several ailments and he could not be examined by the AIIMS board due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The court had earlier also dismissed plea for parole made by co convicts ex-MLA Mahinder Yadav and Balwan Khokhar. Yadav had subsequently died during treatment at the hospital.

Kumar has been in jail here after the Delhi High Court had on December 17, 2018 awarded him life imprisonment for the "remainder of his natural life". The riots case related to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment's Raj Nagar Part-I area of southwest Delhi on November 1 and 2, 1984, and burning down of a Gurudwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.

Anti-Sikh riots had broken out after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.