Court reserves order on CBI plea to close riots case against Tytler

NEW DELHI - A city court hearing a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler Wednesday reserved for April 20 its order on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s report seeking closure of the matter.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit reserved the order after the CBI justified its stand of calling as unreliable statements of two witnesses against Tytler and giving a clean chit to the Congress leader.

The CBI produced the statement made by one witness Surinder Singh, claiming that he had changed his version time and again. Surinder Singh died in June last year.

The CBI counsel said: Initially, he said that he was hit on the head by a wooden rod during the riots but later he changed the weapon of attack to a metal rod.”

The investigating agency also produced an affidavit in which Singh, who was on his death bed, accepted that Tytler was not involved in the riots.

The documents and statements produced in the court by the CBI, were questioned by Lakhwinder Kaur, widow of riots victim Badal Singh. She will appear in court on April 20 to give her statement.

Firstly, the affidavit by Singh is typed in English, a language he could not read, write or understand. Secondly, if his signature is in Gurmukhi, it clearly shows that he could have been misled and told something else before he signed it,” Lakhwinder’s counsel Rebecca John said.

This affidavit of Singh clearly shows the pressure on him. He had been made a pawn in the hands of the CBI,” she said.

The CBI also questioned the documents produced by Lakhwinder Kaur’s counsel April 1 to prove the bonafides of Jasbir Singh, the second witness against Tytler.

CBI counsel asked: The address proof of Jasbir Singh and a bank pass book given to court bears the date Dec 1, 1984 whereas the riot took place one month before that. Also the documents have no authenticity since there are no signatures from the authority.”