Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 29
The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking registration of FIRs against 72 policemen, including six IPS officers, indicted by Kapur-Mittal Committee and Jain-Agrawal Committee for acts of omissions and commissions during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Filed by S Gurlad Singh Kahlon, a former member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the plea also demanded setting up of fast-track courts with adequate infrastructure to try cases relating to the anti-Sikh riots. Noting that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Justice SN Dhingra was re-investigating 186 cases, Kahlon submitted that “till date the SIT has not looked/enquired into the conduct of the police officers, despite being brought out by various reports/ committees, especially Kapur-Mittal Committee and Jain-Agrawal Committee.”
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. A Bench headed Justice SA Bobde, which asked the Centre to respond to Kahlon’s plea, granted two additional months to the SIT to complete its probe into 186 cases of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots reopened in the last two years.
These cases were reopened on the top court’s order on the basis of recommendations made by another SIT set up by the Narendra Modi Government in February 2015 for re-investigation into cases closed by the Delhi Police without proper investigation. The extension was given after the SIT told the Bench that more than 50 per cent of the work had been done and it needed two more months to complete the probe.
The petitioner submitted that time was of the essence as there had already been a 35-year delay and “there is a strong chance of investigation reaching a dead end for lack of evidence due to long delay…”
“This is for the first time that the Supreme Court is considering our plea for registration of FIRs against erring police officers,” Kahlon told The Tribune.
Eatery chain founder’s conviction upheld
- The Supreme Court on Friday upheld life term awarded to P Rajagopal, founder of South Indian Sarvana Bhawan chain of restaurants, in a murder case of his employee in 2001
- A Bench dismissed eight appeals by convicts, including one by Rajagopal, against the Madras HC’s 2009 verdict convicting them in the case
- The HC had enhanced the 10-year term, awarded by a local court to Rajagopal and others, to life imprisonment
- Rajagopal and others conspired and killed the employee in October 2001 as he wanted to marry the deceased’s wife
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