Pushed to the defensive by the chorus of outrage against a Congress ticket to Jagdish Tytler and the CBIs clean chit in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case catalysed by shoe incident the UPA on Wednesday asked the CBI to explain the circumstances behind its report submitted to a lower court. And wanted to know its reasons for not keeping the Department of Personnel and Training the CBIs administrative ministry in the loop. Spurred by concerns raised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,CBI director Ashwani Kumar was asked to provide the facts of the case and the report that his agency submitted to Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate last Thursday giving a clean chit to Tytler. The case comes up for hearing on Thursday. Sources said Kumar is learnt to have told the government that since it had been asked by the court in December 2007 to file an investigation report after questioning Jasbir Singh,it was duty bound to submit it only to the court. The findings,after questioning Jasbir who claimed to be a witness to the riots were not substantively backed,and hence,the CBI filed a cancellation report on March 28 seeking closure of the investigation,he is learnt to have said. Even senior DoPT officials were asked if they were aware of the CBIs report and why the government was not given a copy. The case against Tytler,a Congress candidate from Northeast Delhi,relates to an incident when a mob set afire Gurudwara Pulbangash killing three persons in the riots that broke out after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In September 2007,the CBI sought to close the case against Tytler but Jasbir surfaced in San Francisco and expressed his willingness to depose against the Congress leader. A two-member CBI team was sent to the US to record the statements of Jasbir and another witness,Surinder Singh. While Surinder was the head Granthi of Gurdwara Sahib Majnu ka Tilla,Jasbir was living in Delhi with his uncle. Attorney G S Pannun,who was present when the two-member CBI team questioned Jasbir,claimed that both witnesses categorically told the CBI they had seen Tytler instigating the mob. In his statement to the CBI,Surinder claimed to have seen and heard Tytler telling his supporters on November 1,1984 outside Gurdwara Sahib Pulbangash: Dont only loot them but kill them. They have killed our mother. His statement was recorded by the CBI on February 21,2008. Meanwhile,asked about the CBIs clean chit,Supreme Court judge G T Nanavati,whose report indicted Tytler in the case,said: Whatever I had to say is there in my report. In his 185-page report to the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil on February 9,2005,Nanavati had this to say on Tytlers alleged role in the riots: Relying upon all this material,the Commission considers it safe to record a finding that there is credible evidence against Sh Jagdish Tytler to the effect that very probably he had a hand in organising attacks on Sikhs. The Commission,therefore,recommends to the government to look into this aspect and take further action as may be found necessary. However,in its action-taken report,the UPA rejected these recommendations. It is clear from the remarks very probably that the Commission itself was not absolutely sure about his involvement in such attacks. In criminal cases,a person cannot be prosecuted simply on the basis of probability. In view of the fact that the Commission itself is not certain that Tytler had a role in organising the attacks on Sikhs and in the context of the judicial verdicts on the incidents mentioned in the Commissions report,any further action will not be justified, the ATR read. However,once Nanavatis report and the ATR became public,Tytler,who was then Minister of State for NRI Affairs in the Manmohan Singh government,was forced to resign in August 2005. He,however,denied the charges and trashed the Nanavati report. (With Maneesh Chhibber)
