Sajjan Kumar is serving a life term after being convicted in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has denied bail to former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar, who is serving a life term after he was convicted in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

“It is not a small case. We cannot grant bail,” a three-judge bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said on Kumar’s plea for bail.

The Supreme Court said the former Congress MP cannot continue to stay in hospital when his medical reports say there is no need for hospitalisation.

The court said it will hear his appeal against his conviction and life sentence once physical courts start functioning. For now, the courts are carrying out proceedings via video conferencing due to the coronavirus crisis.

Kumar had filed the bail plea citing medical needs.

The former Congress leader was convicted in the killing of five members of a family in Delhi’s Raj Nagar and setting a gurdwara on fire on November 1, 1984. He was the parliamentarian of that area at the time.

The Delhi High Court had cancelled an earlier court order acquitting him of charges in what the judges called “genocide”. “It is important to assure the victims that despite the challenges truth will prevail,” the court had said.

Kumar was in the Congress for over four decades. In the last few years, he had been sidelined by the party over allegations that he had led blood-thirsty mobs targeting Sikhs in Delhi after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. At least 3,000 people were killed in the riots over the next four days.