Sajjan Kumar's plea seeking more time to surrender rejected by Delhi HC

New Delhi: Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar's plea seeking more time to surrender has been rejected by the Delhi High Court on Friday. He was given life imprisonment in an anti-Sikh riot case earlier this week.

Sajjan Kumar had sought more time to surrender so he could settle some family matters. A Division Bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel asked him to surrender by December 31.

In his plea, the 73-year-old said that he has a big family that includes besides his wife, three children and eight grandchildren and he wants time to meet them all before surrendering.

The Delhi High Court on Monday convicted Kumar in an anti-Sikh riot case of 1984 and sentenced him to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.

Sajjan Kumar said he was shocked and surprised by the judgement as trial court had acquitted him in the case.

He told the High Court that he would appeal in the Supreme Court challenging its order and therefore he needed time to engage senior lawyers.

Sajjan Kumar and the others were charged with the killing of five Sikhs -- Kehar Singh, Gurpreet Singh, Raghuvender Singh, Narender Pal Singh and Kuldeep Singh -- who were members from the same family -- by a mob in Delhi Cantonment's Raj Nagar area in the wake of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.