New Delhi:
Keeping the deadline set by Home Minister P Chidambaram, Delhi's Lt Governor Tejinder Khanna on Thursday granted sanction to CBI to chargesheet senior Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
Official sources said the sanction was given by Khanna to allow the CBI to launch court proceedings against the Congress leader, an accused in the riots that shook the country 25 years ago after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
The sanction was required in the case of Sajjan Kumar as he was also charged with section 153-A of IPC (spreading enmity between two communities).
The news of the sanction for prosecution came almost simultaneously when Chidambaram, during his monthly press conference, said that he had issued "certain direction on December 16, 2009 regarding pending sanctions for prosecution."
Earlier this month, he had said in Rajya Sabha that Delhi Lt Governor has been advised to decide by month-end the CBI request for prosecution of the Congress leader.
CBI has completed investigation or re-investigation of seven cases including that of Sajjan Kumar and late Dharam Das Shastri.
In four cases, the probe agency had sought permission from the competent authority -- the LG of Delhi - to prosecute the accused.
The case was registered against Kumar after the G T Nanavati Commission report of February 2005, which had recommended fresh examination of complaints in which he had been named and no chargesheet had been filed.
CBI had asked for prosecution sanction for four cases of rioting in Sultanpuri and Mongolpuri on November 1, 1984.
CBI has filed a closure report in connection with another Congress heavyweight Jagdish Tytler citing that no evidence was found against him. The witnesses, questioned by the CBI in the US, were cited by the agency as unreliable.
The court is yet to take a cognisance of the CBI report.