The Supreme Court has upheld the life sentence awarded to four persons for burning two men to death during 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
A bench of justices P Sathasivam and M Y Eqbal turned down the plea of the convicts that they could not be held guilty of murder as the body was not recovered by the Delhi police and there was delay in lodging FIR in the case.
The bench upheld the Delhi High Court's order convicting and sentencing Delhi residents Lal Bahadur, Surender P Singh, Ram Lal and Virender Singh to life imprisonment. The High Court had on August 27, 2008 set aside the trial court's order which had acquitted all the four. Ram Lal died in 2011 during the pendency of his appeal in the apex court.
The bench also observed that mere variation in statements of a witnesses could not be a ground to discard their testimony as had been done by the trial court in the case.