M A I N   N E W S

Tytler Case
Court reserves order on CBI’s closure report
Rashi Agarwal/TNS

New Delhi, April 7
The fate of senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler hangs in balance after a local court kept its order reserved on CBI’s closure report giving him a clean chit in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit, after hearing arguments of the CBI and the counsel for Lakhwinder Kaur, a riot victim, who opposed the probe agency’s report, said the court would pronounce its order on the matter on April 20.

CBI — which had on April two last year let off the Congress leader in its probe report — submitted there was nothing to proceed against Tytler as two witnesses California-based Jasbir Singh and Surinder Singh (already expired) were not reliable and their statements were “false and concocted”.

One witness, Surinder Singh, had told Justice Nanavati Commission, which had probed the riots, in an affidavit that Tytler had led a mob on November 1, 1984, and incited them to burn a gurdwara and kill the Sikhs but later he retracted from the statement in his second affidavit, CBI counsel Sanjay Kumar told the court.

Lakhwinder Kaur, in her complaint, had rubbished CBI’s claims and accused the probe agency of twisting facts to favour the high-profile accused.The victim’s counsel, HS Phoolka, said the court might go for reinvestigation if it did not approve of CBI’s probe.