From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The 1984 anti-Sikh riots are back in the focus of the Supreme Court as it took on record a 2019 report by the SIT (Special Investigation Team) the Centre had set up in 2014 that was reconstituted by it in 2018 and deferred the hearing for a fresh probe after two weeks.
On Thursday, the issue was raised by senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing on behalf of petitioner Sardar Gurlad Singh Kahlon, pointing out that the SIT report filed on November 29, 2019 at the instance of the top court alleged sham trials by the authorities.
The Centre had in 2014 set up a 3-member SIT headed by IPS officer Pramod Asthana to examine the possibility of reopening 293 cases related to the 1984 riots for investigation. It recommended closure of 241 cases that was challenged by Khlon in the Supreme Court. Noting that the SIT had not conducted a detailed probe in a large number of those cases, then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra constituted a new SIT in January 2018. 186 such cases.
The team of former Delhi High Court justice S N Dhingra, Abhishek Dular and retired IPS officer Rajdeep Singh was to submit an interim report within two months. Singh could not join the SIT and so the SC asked the other two members to go ahead with their examination. The Panel started its work in the beginning of 2019.
The panel headed by Justice Dhingra slammed “indifferent police and insensitive trial judges” for a complete failure of justice in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and blamed the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of inquiry for causing years of delay in the registration of FIRs in the heinous crimes.
It blamed the Justice Misra commission, which was set up by the Rajiv Gandhi government immediately after the riots over the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi by her own security guards, received hundreds of affidavits but failed to direct police to register FIRs and delay of years resulted in the acquittals.
