Twenty-five years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the UPA government is set to give permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to prosecute former Delhi Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in four cases registered after the G.T. Nanavati Commission report of February 2005.

Sources confirmed that CBI chief Ashwani Kumar had written to the Home Ministry earlier this month to seek sanction to prosecute Sajjan Kumar and others as the agency’s investigations into four cases of rioting in Sultanpuri and Mongolpuri on November 1, 1984 were complete.

The CBI will file a fresh charge-sheet before the trial court once the sanction is granted.”We have asked for sanction for prosecution in all four 1984 riots cases recommended by the Nanavati Commission,” said a senior official.

The Nanavati Commission report had found evidence against Kumar and recommended fresh examination of cases in which he was named and no charge-sheet had been filed. 

The Home Ministry asked the CBI to investigate the role of Kumar and fellow Congressman Jagdish Tytler in the anti-Sikh pogrom that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. The CBI filed a closure report in the cases against Tytler on April 2, 2009.

Sajjan Kumar was dropped in favour of his brother Ramesh for the South Delhi seat in the Lok Sabha elections this year.