Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, who was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 17 in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, on Thursday requested the Delhi High Court for 30 days to surrender. The court will hear his plea on Friday.

A division bench of the Delhi High Court had held Kumar guilty of murder, promoting enmity between groups, and defiling public property. The decision reversed the lower court’s 2013 verdict acquitting Kumar. The court had ordered him to surrender by December 31.

Meanwhile, the court adjourned a second case against the former Congress leader related to the violence, The Statesman reported. The Central Bureau of Investigation had filed a case against Kumar, Brahmanand Gupta and Ved Prakash for rioting and the murder of a Sikh man in Delhi’s Sultanpuri. The investigating agency had filed the case based on the recommendations of the Nanavati Commission.

Meanwhile, advocate HS Phoolka said he has advised the plaintiffs in the case to refrain from moving the Supreme Court against the High Court’s verdict, ANI reported. “We should rather press for dismissal of Sajjan Kumar’s appeal at the earliest,” Phoolka added. “Life imprisonment till death is better punishment than death sentence.”