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New Delhi, August 16
The Supreme Court on Wednesday set up a supervisory panel of two retired judges to scrutinise 241 cases relating to 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi closed by a Special Investigation Team formed by the NDA government for re-investigation.
A three-judge Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked the panel to supervisory panel to give its report in three months and fixed November 28 for further hearing.
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 anti-Sikh riots from Kanpur demanding an SIT probe into the murders of more than 125 people.
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 of 1984 that had been closed, the SIT has managed to file chargesheets only in very small number of cases taken up for further probe.
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.
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 should be conducted on a day-to-day basis.
The Bench asked them to show its earlier order in this regard 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 the cases closed by the SIT. The Centre had submitted photo copies of the files of these cases in a sealed cover.
On Wednesday, the Bench asked its Registry to hand over the files to the supervisory panel to start its work. It also asked the government to provide secretarial support to the panel.
