2 Apr :Senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler on Thursday got a clean chit from the CBI in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case after the investigating agency found no "sufficient evidence" of the involvement of the former Union minister who is contesting the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The CBI sought closure of the 25-year-old case against Tytler, who is contesting from Delhi, in its report filed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Pandit.
"…during further investigation of this case, sufficient evidence regarding the involvement of Jagdish Tytler did not come up on record," a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
The statement also said the statements of two of the witnesses were "inconsistent, unreliable and unworthy of credit".
65-year-old Tytler, who had to resign as Union Minister from the UPA government in the wake of the Justice G T Nanavati Commission report indicting him for his alleged role in the riots, said the CBI report has once again proved his "innocence".
"Truth has come out once again. I was given clean chit earlier also. But a political conspiracy was hatched against me. I am happy that truth has again come out. I am innocent."
But the victims of the riots that followed the assassination of the former prime minister Indira Gandhi cried foul alleging that CBI seems to be "hand in gloves" with the accused.
The CBI report will be considered on 9th April by the court.
Earlier, the CBI had also filed a closure report against Tytler which was rejected by the court in December 2007. The probe agency was asked to further investigate the case as Jasbir Singh, a witness, who was declared untraceable, had surfaced.
During the proceedings on Thursday, H S Phoolka, counsel for Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee, raised objections in the court over the alleged leak of the report.
"CBI seems to be hand in gloves with the accused who claims that he has been given clean chit," Phoolka alleged.
Meanwhile, a group of riots victims, demonstrated outside the Karkardooma court complex in east Delhi protesting the CBI’s decision to cancel the FIR against Tytler.
Reacting to the report of CBI, the main opposition BJP said the agency’s clean chit to Tytler has "shaken the faith of the common man" and "exposed the hypocrisy of Congress".
"The news of Jagdish Tytler being given a clean chit is really shocking. It has shaken the faith of the common man in the judicial system in the one hand and the CBI on the other," party spokesperson Balbir Punj told a news agency.
While reactions started pouring over the clean chit given to Tytler, the CBI firmly stood by its report and issued its statement that it had found no evidence against him and that the testimony of two of the witnesses were "inconsistent, unreliable and unworthy of credit".