NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday told the Allahabad high court to expeditiously decide “out of turn” the appeals in the 1984 ant-Sikh riots cases, emphasising that the four-decades-old tragedy was investigated only upon the court’s intervention and any further delay would result in evidence of vital witnesses being lost.
The court order came on a public interest litigation filed by the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee that complained about the slow progress of anti-Sikh riots cases in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh and sought the court’s intervention to expedite the appeals pending before the high court seeking re-investigation.
“Keeping that in view, and most importantly the fact that with the passage of time, production of vital witnesses has become a difficult task, we request the high court to take up these matters on an out-of-turn basis and expeditiously,” a bench of justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi said,
The court reviewed the UP government’s status report, which indicated that the trial had been stayed in three of the 11 appeals pending in the high court. “What bothers us is that in the 11 cases where the trials commenced pursuant to the charge sheets filed by the SIT, the high court has stayed the proceedings in three cases,” the bench said. The court stated that it did not wish to comment on the issue, as it might impact the accused’s rights, but requested the high court to bear in mind that the investigation into these cases was initiated at the top court’s intervention.
“..all that we request is that the high court may take up these matters out of turn for their adjudication in accordance with law. We say so for the reason the unfortunate tragedy took place way back in the year 1984 and it is only because of repeated efforts made by this court that the investigations were revived, SIT was constituted and on completion of investigation, the chargesheet has now been filed,” the top court said.
{{/usCountry}}“..all that we request is that the high court may take up these matters out of turn for their adjudication in accordance with law. We say so for the reason the unfortunate tragedy took place way back in the year 1984 and it is only because of repeated efforts made by this court that the investigations were revived, SIT was constituted and on completion of investigation, the chargesheet has now been filed,” the top court said.
{{/usCountry}}The UP government informed the bench that in most cases, the high court has condoned the delay in admitting appeals after a gap of more than 8,000 days. The court directed the state’s Advocate General to deploy its best law officers having expertise in criminal law to assist in the hearing of the pending appeals. It further directed its order to be placed before the high court bench for necessary action.
The petitioner, represented by advocate Jagjit Singh Chabra, requested the court to monitor further progress of the cases. SImilar monitoring is being done by the top court of appeals pending in the anti-Sikh riots cases pursued before the Delhi high court.
The top court’s attempts to bring justice to the victims of the 1984 riots had led to the constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) headed by former Delhi high court judge, justice (retd) SN Dhingra who analysed the riot cases that were closed.
In a petition by S Gurlad Singh Kahlon, a former DSGMC member, the top court was informed of the shoddy probe conducted by the Delhi police which clubbed multiple murder cases into a single FIR and failed to register separate offences involving sexual assault, murder, etc.