NEW DELHI (TIP): A Delhi court on July 30 fixed August 14 for hearing a case in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler for his alleged role in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
Additional chief metropolitan magistrate SPS Laler put the matter for next month as the lawyers in all six district courts are on an indefinite strike to protest delay in the passage of a bill in Parliament aimed at enhancing pecuniary jurisdiction of trial courts.
The court had earlier fixed Thursday’s hearing for filing of a protest petition by the victims against the CBI’s third closure report giving clean chit to Tytler in the case.
Senior advocate HS Phoolka, representing the victims, had earlier sought four weeks time to file the protest petition.
The CBI had earlier told the court that no fresh first information report (FIR) had been lodged against Tytler on allegations of influencing witness and money laundering.
The CBI’s reply had come while responding to the court’s query whether the agency had registered any case against Tytler under Sections 193 (punishment for false evidence), 195-A (threatening a person to give false evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The court had earlier asked the CBI to respond to the allegations that Tytler had allegedly tried to influence a witness by giving him money and sending his son abroad and also alleged “hawala” transaction.
Allegations of influencing witness and “hawala” transaction had surfaced from the statement of arms dealer and navy war room leak case accused Abhishek Verma, which was recorded by the CBI earlier.
Verma, who is at present lodged in a jail and whose statement was recorded by the CBI on August 5, 2013, had said the conversation between him and Tytler took place after his release from the jail in the leak case when they were going to a farmhouse of Gopal Kanda, the then Congress MLA of Haryana, in August-September 2008.
The case pertains to riots at Gurdwara Pulbangash in North Delhi where three people were killed on November 1, 1984, after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
The CBI had claimed Tytler was not present at the gurdwara during the riots and was at Teen Murti House.
Tytler’s alleged role in the case relating to the killing of three persons — Badal Singh, Thakur Singh and Gurcharan Singh — near Gurdwara Pulbangash was re-investigated by the CBI after a court had in December 2007 refused to accept its closure report.
Tytler had earlier denied any role in the riots.