’84 riots: 241 cases closed by SIT to get relook by SC panel

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 16

The Supreme Court on Wednesday set up a supervisory panel of two retired judges to scrutinise 241 cases relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi closed by a special investigation team (SIT) formed by the NDA government to re-investigate them.

A three-judge Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked the supervisory panel to give its report in three months and fixed November 28 for further hearing.

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Justice Misra, who did not disclose the names of two former Supreme Court judges to be on the panel, said he would add their names to the former order.

The Bench also issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh Government on another petition filed by victims of the 1984 riots from Kanpur demanding an SIT probe into the murder of over 125 persons.

It asked petitioner’s counsel Prasoon Kumar to hand over a copy of the petition to Uttar Pradesh Additional Advocate General Aishwarya Bhati and posted the matter for hearing on September 21.

Two years after the Narendra Modi government set up an SIT to re-investigate serious anti-Sikh riots cases that had been closed, the SIT has managed to file chargesheets only in a very small number of cases taken up for further probe.

Almost 3,000 people were killed, most of them in Delhi, in the riots that broke out following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

Senior counsel Arvind Datar and HS Phoolka, who represented petitioner Gurnad Singh, told the Bench that only nine cases were going on. They demanded that the trial in these cases be conducted on a day-to-day basis.

Noting that there was no need to pass another order at this point, the Bench asked them to show its earlier order to the trial court. 

The order came after Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta gave an update on the cases being re-investigated by SIT.

Earlier, the top court had summoned the files of 199 cases closed by the SIT. The Centre had submitted photocopies of files of these cases in a sealed cover. Mehta told the Bench that 42 more cases have been closed since submission of the files.