The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now facing allegations that it is deliberately undermining its own appeal against the acquittal of Congress MP Sajjan Kumar and seven others by a Special Court in 2002 for the murder of a Sikh youth during the 1984 riots.While Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee chief Avtar Singh Makkar and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal have said the CBI has appointed “a junior lawyer” to appear for it, the Delhi High Court today pulled him up for “not doing his homework properly.”A Bench comprising Justice Manmohan Sarin and Justice S L Bhayana told CBI counsel J S Wadia: “You have not done your homework properly.” When Wadia resumed reading from a statement and said “stop”, the Bench told him: “We (the court) should tell you to go for a full stop.”The Bench is hearing the appeal which was admitted after a hiatus of over four years_ after various Benches of the Delhi High Court declined to hear the case on one ground or the other. “The CBI has appointed a very junior level lawyer to represent this case,” said senior Supreme Court lawyer H S Phulka, who is “monitoring” the CBI appeal for the November 1984 Carnage Justice Committee.Makkar, SGPC president, has reportedly written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking the appointment of an Additional Solicitor General to fight the case on behalf of the CBI. “We appeal to the CBI to not take this case lightly and appoint a senior counsel in the rank of Additional Solicitor General to plead the case,” Makkar said.“The real culprits have come to light after so many years and the CBI has now appointed a junior lawyer to fight its case solely to defeat its own purpose,” Badal told The Indian Express.Wadia said the allegations are “absolutely baseless.” “I have been registered as an advocate since 1971 and as a CBI prosecutor in the trial courts for more than 23 years,” he said. He said his designation in the agency was that of an “Additional Legal Advisor and Special Public Prosecutor.” Wadia said “he had no special interest in the case.” “I am here on the directions given to me by the CBI director and am willing to relieve myself of the responsibility if given the orders to do so,” Wadia added.On November 1, 1984, Naveen Singh, a resident of Sultanpuri, was murdered by a mob allegedly instigated by Kumar. In August 1987, a committee formed by the Centre comprising M L Jain, a retired Delhi High Court Judge, and A K Bannerjee, an IPS officer, recommended the registration of the case after Singh’s wife filed an affidavit that her case was not “deliberately registered” by the Sultanpuri police in 1984.In August 1990, CBI registered the case and, a year later, filed a chargesheet against Kumar, Jai Kishan, a sitting MLA from Delhi, and 11others before a lower court. Five of the accused died later.During the trial, though two witnesses identified Kumar as leading the mob, the case collapsed when 50 others turned hostile. Kaur, herself, had identified Kumar in three hearings, but her testimony was dismissed as “contradictory” in a subsequent session. The trial court acquitted the eight accused on the “benefit of doubt”.
