A Delhi court on Thursdayacquitted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar in a case related to inciting violence in the Janakpuri and Vikaspuri areas of Delhi during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, PTI reported.

Kumar will remain in jail due to his convictions in other cases.

In the present case, Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh of the Rouse Avenue Courts said that there was “no evidence of instigating any such mob” and “of conspiracy”, The Indian Express reported.

“Unfortunately, most of the witnesses examined by the prosecution in this case are hearsay, and/or those witnesses who failed to name the accused for three long decades,” the newspaper quoted Singh as saying.

Relying on the identification of the “accused by such persons would be risky and may lead to a travesty”, he added.

Large-scale riots had broken out in Delhi on October 31, 1984, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister, by her Sikh bodyguards. Mobs, allegedly helped by some Congress leaders, had attacked Sikhs and torched their homes.

Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi alone. To date, only 28 cases haveended in convictions out of the 587 first information reports filed in the national capital. Thirteen of these convictions have been in murder cases.

In February 2015, Kumar was booked in two cases based on complaints of violence in Janakpuri and Vikaspuri during the riots, PTI reported.

The first FIR was linked to the violence in Janakpuri, where two men – Sohan Singh and his son-in-law Avtar – were killed on November 1, 1984. The second one pertained to the killing of a man named Gurcharan Singh, who was allegedly set ablaze on November 2, 1984, in Vikaspuri.

On August 23, a court in the national capital had charged Kumar with rioting and promoting enmity in the case, while discharging him of the offences of murder and criminal conspiracy.

On Thursday, Singh said: “This court has no hesitation in holding that the prosecution has not met the standard of proof required in a criminal trial to prove the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Eighteen witnesses, which included nine alleged eyewitnesses, had been examined by the prosecution in the case.

“A man may be convicted of 100 crimes, but to be held guilty of the 101st crime, proof beyond a reasonable doubt in that crime is required,” The Indian Express quoted the judge as saying. “One cannot be found guilty merely because in the past he was involved in similar offences.”

The order added: “Past criminal background or the commission of other offences are separate and can have some value in sentencing a person, but they cannot be considered by a court of law in holding a person guilty of another crime.”

In February 2025, the Rouse Avenue Courts sentenced Kumar tolife imprisonment for the murder of two other men during the riots.

In this case, thefamily members of those who died – Jaswant Singh and his son Tarun Deep Singh – had alleged that a mob led by him burnt the two men alive on November 1, 1984, in the Saraswati Vihar area in the national capital.

They also alleged that Kumar, who was then the Congress MP in Outer Delhi, “instigated and abetted the unruly mob” which set their house on fire.

This was Kumar’ssecond conviction linked to the 1984 riots.

In December 2018, theDelhi High Court held him guilty of murder, promoting enmity between groups and defiling public property. Kumarresigned from the Congress after his first conviction.

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1984 anti-Sikh violence: As it convicts Sajjan Kumar, court sees pattern in attacks on minorities