186 anti-Sikh riots cases to be re-investigated

The Supreme Court of India has  decided to set up a three-member special investigation team (SIT) to re-investigate 186 anti-Sikh riots cases. 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.

A three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, took the decision after a perusal of a two-judge supervisory panel report that scrutinised 241 cases closed by an SIT formed by the NDA government. The report was submitted on December 6.

Appearing on behalf of the victims, senior counsel HS Phoolka suggested the names of former Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah, former Punjab and Haryana High Court CJ Mukul Mudgal and former Delhi HC Judge SN Dhingra.   The Bench made it clear that the two other persons would be a former IPS officer in the rank of Inspector General and a serving IPS officer in the rank of Superintendent of Police. The court had assigned the task of examining the 241 cases closed by the SIT to the committee, which was to recommend as to whether the cases were rightly closed or not. The court had said if there was any material to show that a particular case had been wrongly closed, it was open to order prosecution.

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