The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s petition which sought more time to surrender.

Yesterday, Kumar had filed plea seeking more time to surrender so he could resolve some family matters. In the plea, he had requested that he should be given more time to surrender as he had to settle some property dispute and meet his close relatives.

He had said in the plea that he had a big family that includes wife, three children and eight grandchildren.

Kumar was sentenced to imprisonment till death in an anti-Sikh riot case earlier this week and asked to surrender by Dec 31.

A Division Bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel had pronounced the verdict. The Bench had convicted Kumar under various sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) including criminal conspiracy, murder, delivering inflammatory speeches inciting rioting against Sikhs, mischief by fire or explosive substance with aim to demolish house and hurting or desecrating place of worship with intent to offense the religion of any class.

“This court is of the view that the mass killings of Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere in November 1984 were in fact ‘crimes against humanity’. They will continue to shock the collective conscience of society for a long time to come,” the bench said.

—India Legal Bureau