Delhi court grants relief to accused in 1981 AI plane hijacking case

New Delhi: Thirty-seven years after an Indian Airlines plane with 111 passengers and six crew members on board was hijacked to Lahore on its way from New Delhi to Srinagar, a Delhi sessions court on Monday acquitted both the accused. Two of the five Sikh hijackers were tried on charges of waging war against the state in connection with the highjacking case.

As additional sessions Judge Ajay Pandey pronounced the word “acquitted”, accused Satnam Singh and Tejinder Pal Singh, their family members, friends and supporters present in the packed courtroom welcomed the judgement, saying, “Jo bole so nihal, Sat Sri Akal.” The duo had already served life imprisonment in Pakistan in connection with the crime. Satnam, who was 30 at the time of the offence, has turned 67 while Tejinder is a year younger.

The duo were granted bail in July last year after fighting a protracted legal battle. After the verdict by the sessions court on Monday, Satnam thanked the judiciary, saying  “The Sikh victims of 1984 riots are yet to get justice, but in our case we have got justice from courts. Granted bail on July 20, 2017, the two accused had been asked to remain present in the Patiala House court at the time of the verdict.

After serving their sentence in Pakistan, Tejinder and Satnam had moved to Canada and the US respectively, and were deported to India in 1998 and 1999 in connection with the September 29, 1981 incident. The other three alleged hijackers — Gajinder Singh, Jasbir Singh and Karan Singh — are not in India.

Belonging to Dal Khalsa, the hijackers had demanded the release of Sikh preacher and head of Damdami Taksal Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale, who was arrested on September 20, 1981 in a murder case. Later, he was killed during Operation Bluestar in 1984.

Lawyers Maninder Singh and Kanwarpal Singh of Dal Khalsa also thanked the judiciary.

The accused duo had contended that they had already served life sentence in Pakistan and spent 36 years of their lives in litigation.

Terming it a “classic example of double jeopardy”, they contended that since they had already served life term for the crime in Pakistan, they could not be tried again in India.

“This would violate their fundamental right under Article 20(2) of the Constitution and Section 300 of the Criminal Procedure Code, “ the two had submitted.  But the prosecution had contended that the principle of double jeopardy did not apply as the offences for which they were tried and convicted in Pakistan were different from the ones mentioned in the chargesheet filed in a Delhi sessions court.

But the accused contended that  hijacking was one piece of act and a fresh case under a different provision of law amounted to violation of the principle of double jeopardy under Article 20(2) of the Constitution.

The Delhi Police had filed a supplementary chargesheet in a Delhi court on September 29, 2011 under charges of sedition and waging war against the State. In May 2017, the Delhi High Court had refused to quash the supplementary chargesheet against the accused and asked them to face trial. But the trial court had dropped sedition charges against the accused in May 2018 and they were tried only for waging war against the Indian state.