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VIOLENCE

SIT report on 1984 riots supervise further investigation into 186 riots cases, in which

closure reports were filed earlier. The SIT presently has only
submitted in top court two members as Singh had declined to be a part of the team
on “personal grounds”.
During the hearing, the Centre placed the SIT’s final
report in a sealed cover before a bench comprising Chief
Justice S A Bobde and justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant. Ad-
tehelka bureau ditional Solicitor General Pinky Anand told the bench that
since the SIT has done its work and submitted its final re-
port, the team should be discharged now. Pinky Anand, the
he special investigation team set up on the Centre’s senior law officer, handed over the special team’s
Supreme Court’s orders to probe 186 cases from report in a sealed cover to the top court and requested that
the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi has completed the team headed by a retired high court judge be discharged.
its investigation. The SIT had been constituted on The court has taken the report on record and adjourned the
T the directions of a three-judge bench led by the case for two weeks.
then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in January
2018. This had been done on a petition filed by a riot
victim Gurlad Singh Kahlon. The SIT had taken up
the probe into the cases that had been closed by
the police. The SIT, headed by former Delhi high
court judge, Justice SN Dhingra, was to have three
members. But it was permitted to function with
two members after one, retired IPS officer Rajdeep
Singh, declined to be a part of the exercise. IPS of-
ficer Abhishek Dular was the second member apart
from Justice Dhingra.
Large-scale riots had broken out in the national
capital in the aftermath of the assassination of the
then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh
security guards on the morning of October 31, 1984.
The violence had claimed 2,733 lives in Delhi alone
according to government estimates. Some senior
politicians, many of them from the Congress, were
accused of inciting violence and fomenting ten-
sions. In December 2018, the Delhi High Court had
convicted former Congress MP Sajjan Kumar for his
role in the riots and sentenced him to life imprison-
ment. His appeal is pending in Supreme Court.
The Centre had also sought the Supreme Court’s permis- Appearing for victims, senior counsel HS Phoolka op-
sion to disband a special investigation team (SIT), headed posed the request to disband the SIT before the court exam-
by former Delhi High Court judge Justice S N Dhingra, ines the SIT report. He told the bench that the court should
saying it has completed its probe into 186 cases of the 1984 first examine the SIT’s final report and see if anything more
anti-Sikh riots. The SIT, also comprising retired IPS officer was required to be done by the team before taking a deci-
Rajdeep Singh and serving 2006 batch IPS officer Abhishek sion on whether to disband it. He also asked for a copy of the
Dular, was set up by the apex court on January 11 last year to report to be supplied to him. Additional Solicitor General
Pinky Anand said the report is in sealed cover and only for
The SIT had been constituted on the the perusal of the court.
The bench, after taking on record the SIT’s report, said it
directions of a three-judge bench would hear the matter after two weeks. Earlier in March, the
led by the then Chief Justice of India top court had granted two more months to the SIT to com-
Dipak Misra in January 2018. This plete its probe into 186 riot cases after the SIT informed it
that more than 50 per cent of work was done and it wanted
had been done on a petition filed by two more months to complete the investigation.
a riot victim Gurlad Singh Kahlon LETTERS@TEHELKA.COM

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