‘Sham’ Trials Conducted in 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots: SC Takes on Record SIT Report

Sakina Tashrifwala

Published on: November 4, 2022 at 20:45 IST

The Supreme Court heard the summary report produced by a special investigation team appointed by the Court in reference to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots charges on Thursday.

A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha deferred the hearing of a petition demanding an investigation into the 1984 riots for two weeks to read the report.

Senior Advocate HS Phoolka, representing petitioner S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon, highlighted the SIT report issued on November 29th, 2019, and asserted that sham trials are being conducted.

Phoolka read the following section of the report:

“A review of cases reveals that in FIR No. 433/84 PS Kalyanpuri, while police sent a challan in respect of 56 murders after clubbing various cases, the trial court framed charges only in respect of 5 murders and no charges were framed in respect of the remaining murders…..”

“It is unknown why charges were made for only 5 killings rather than 56 murders, and why the trial court did not order separate trials for each act of crime. According to the judgments contained in these files, when one of the witnesses declared in court that she had witnessed the incident and could identify the perpetrators, the public prosecutor did not even ask her to identify the rioters out of the multiple accused persons present in court.”

“We will go over the report and the applications and make a decision in two weeks,” the bench told the senior lawyer.

The bench also asked Senior Advocate Phoolka to provide a written memorandum outlining his arguments.

The Union Government established a three-member SIT in 2014, led by IPS officer Pramod Asthana, to investigate the prospect of reviving 293 cases relating to the 1984 riots.

The panel determined that the investigations in 241 of these cases were complete. The petitioner appealed these decisions to the Supreme Court.

A bench led by then- CJI Dipak Misra concurred that the panel had not performed a thorough investigation in many of the instances and ordered the formation of a new SIT.

As a result, the Supreme Court reconstituted a three-member SIT in January 2018 to investigate 186 such cases.

After two months, a commission comprised of Justice Dhingra, Abhishek Dular, and former IPS officer Rajdeep Singh was to present an interim report. Singh, on the other hand, was unable to join the SIT.

After the Supreme Court directed the remaining members to proceed with their examination without a third member, the panel began its work in early 2019 with 199 instances given to it, including some cases previously investigated by the Asthana panel.

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