E-Paper
Anti-Sikh riots: Apex court takes on record SIT report
A bench comprising justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha adjourned the hearing of a plea seeking probe into the 1984 riots cases to peruse the report for two weeks
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Thursday took on record the summarised report filed by a court-constituted special investigation team (SIT) in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases.
A bench comprising justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha adjourned the hearing of a plea seeking probe into the 1984 riots cases to peruse the report for two weeks.
Senior advocate HS Phoolka, appearing for the petitioner Gurlad Singh Kahlon, who had sought the court’s direction for setting up of the SIT to ensure speedy justice for the riot victims, cited the SIT report filed on November 29, 2019, and said sham trials have taken place in the 1984 cases.
According to the SIT report, in FIR No 433/84 at Kalyanpuri police station, the police sent a challan of the murder of 56 persons, but the trial court framed charges in the killing of five persons.
The report stated that witnesses appeared before the court and gave evidence about the killings of their nears and dears but since no charge was framed against the rest of the accused, the testimony of witnesses went waste and nobody was punished.
The report also stated that it is not known why charges were framed only for five murders and not 56 murders and why the trial court did not order a separation of the trial for each incident of crime.
According to the report, it is also seen from the perusal of judgments found in these files that when a witness stated in the court that she had seen the incident and could identify the culprits, the public prosecutor did not even ask her to identify the rioters out of several accused persons present in the court.
