1984 Anti-Sikh Riots : Supreme Court Takes On Record SIT Report

The Supreme Court on Thursday took on record the summarised report filed by a Court-constituted Special Investigation Team in relation to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases.A bench comprising Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha adjourned the hearing of a plea seeking probe into the 1984 riots after two weeks, to peruse the report.Senior Advocate HS Phoolka, appearing for the Petitioner S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon, cited the SIT report filed on 29th November 2019 and stated that sham trials are being taken up.Phoolka read out the following part from the report : "A perusal of cases also shows that in FIR No 433/84 PS Kalyanpuri while police after clubbing various cases sent a challan in respect of murder of 56 persons, the trial court framed charges only in respect of killing of 5 persons and no charge was framed in respect of remaining murders…..It is not known why charges were framed only for 5 murders and not 56 murders and why trial court did not order separation of trial for each incident of crime. It is also seen from the perusal of the judgments found in these files that when the witnesses stated in the court that she had seen the incident and can identify the culprits, the public prosecutor did not even ask her to identify the rioters out of several accused persons present in the court." "We will go through the report and the applications and take it after 2 weeks", the bench told the senior lawyer. The bench also requested Senior Advocate Phoolka to file a written note with his contentions.The Union Government, in 2014, had 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. The panel found that investigation in 241 of these cases were fit to be closed. The petitioner challenged these findings in the top court. A bench led by then CJI Dipak Misra agreed that the panel had not conducted a detailed probe in a large number of those cases and ordered the constitution of a new SIT. Thus, in January 2018, a 3 member SIT was re-constituted by the Supreme Court to examine 186 such cases.A commission, comprising of Justice Dhingra, Abhishek Dular and retired IPS officer, Rajdeep Singh, was to submit an interim report after 2 months. However, Singh was unable to join the SIT. After the apex court asked the remaining members to go ahead with their examination without a third member, the panel started its work in the beginning of 2019 with 199 cases being referred to them, including some cases which had been examined by the Asthana panel.Case Title : S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon vs Union of India and Ors. – W. P. (Crl.) No. 9/2016

1984 Anti-Sikh Riots : Supreme Court Takes On Record SIT Report

Deepankar Malviya

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