Anti-Sikh riots: SC To Examine Report Filed By Its Panel On 241 Closed Cases

Instead of a sealed cover, the report was filed in a leather bag with a number lock system 

Taking on record the final report submitted by an advisory board comprising of former SC judges Justices J M Panchal and K S P Radhakrishnan appointed by it to look into the closure of 241 cases in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Supreme Court  today said it will examine it on December 11.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said it will open the leather bag with a number lock system carrying the documents on that day.

It asked the parties including Additional Solicitor General Pinki Anand to be present to assist the court in the matter.

It was on August 16 that the bench appointed the committee.

The Centre had earlier told that out of the 250 cases which were investigated by the SIT, closure reports were filed in 241.

It had said that nine cases were still being investigated by the SIT, while two cases are being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The apex court had on March 24 asked the Centre to place before it the files pertaining to the 199 cases of the anti- Sikh riots which the special investigation team (SIT) set up by the Home Ministry had decided to close.

The SIT is headed by Pramod Asthana, an IPS officer of 1986 batch, and has Rakesh Kapoor, a retired district and sessions judge, and Kumar Gyanesh, an additional deputy commissioner of Delhi Police, as its members. The anti-Sikh riots, which had broke out after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, had claimed 2,733 lives in Delhi alone.

The government had earlier filed a status report on the probe conducted by the SIT in the cases. Petitioner S Gurlad Singh Kahlon had earlier told the bench that a total of 293 riots related cases were taken up for scrutiny by the three-member SIT and it had decided to close 199 of them after scrutiny. Kahlon, a member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, had sought the court's direction for setting up an SIT to ensure speedy justice to riots victims