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1984 riots cases: SC to take up on Monday fresh status report on implementation of Dhingra panel report

BJP national spokesperson RP Singh writes to Home Minister Shah that 'the Government of India must look into the matter on priority and take appropriate steps towards perpetrators and those who shielded them'
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The Supreme Court will on Monday take up a fresh status report filed by the Delhi Police on the implementation of recommendations of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Justice (Retd) SN Dhingra on reopening of 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases.

The matter is listed before a Bench led by AS Oka which had on January 27 deferred the hearing as the papers were not in order and it needed to peruse the documents filed by the parties.

Ahead of the crucial hearing, BJP National Spokesperson RP Singh has written to Home Minister Amit Shah highlighting that no trial was held in the case relating to the murder of Joginder Singh – the husband of Surjeet Kaur and an incident of murder of six persons was never investigated.

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Noting that a charge sheet was filed with regard to the murder of 56 persons, but the trial court framed charges only for the murder of 5 persons and no charges were framed regarding the remaining 51 persons,” Singh wrote.

He said the peculiar facts of this case were not brought to the notice of the Delhi High Court which dismissed the appeal only on the ground that an earlier appeal of a case from a different police station was dismissed.

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“I reiterate on behalf of Sikhs and the citizens of India that the Govt of India must look into the matter on priority and take appropriate steps towards perpetrators and those who shielded them,” Singh wrote.

The Delhi Police have filed a fresh status report on the implementation of the report of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Justice (Retd) SN Dhingra on the investigation into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases. The Delhi Police status report talked about 8 cases in which appeals were filed as recommended by the Dhingra Committee but the same were dismissed by the Delhi High Court. At least in two cases the appeals against the high court’s order were also rejected by the top court, it said.

However, petitioner Gurlad Singh Kahlon alleged that the SIT report has been dealt with “complete lack of seriousness and in a casual manner” and that the Delhi Police merely filed statutory appeals against acquittals and the same were dismissed on the ground of delay.

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

Acting on a petition filed by S Gurlad Singh Kahlon—a former member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee – the top court had in January 2018 appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Justice (Retd) SN Dhingra to re-investigating 186 cases of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that were reopened.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had on January 15, 2020 informed the Supreme Court that it had accepted the report of the SIT which implicated several Delhi police personnel and said it would take action accordingly.

Senior counsel HS Phoola, representing the riots victims, had on January 27 submitted a tabulated chart based on the SIT report on behalf of the petitioner to highlight the inaction on the part of the Delhi Police. He said while the murder of six persons was never investigated and no action was taken in at least two cases, in one case no SLP was filed against dismissal of a case. He said the SHO who allegedly took away licenced guns of Sikhs and made a gesture to the mob to attack Sikhs was promoted at the rank of ACP.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati had told the Bench that the Delhi Police had filed a fresh status report as directed by the court on December 20.

Phoolka and advocate Amarjit Bedi had earlier pointed out that there were some glaring instances in the SIT report and said 500 cases were clubbed in one FIR and the investigating officer could not probe them.

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