1984 Anti-Sikh Riots: Supreme Court takes SIT on record
Nov 03, 2022
New Delhi [India], November 3 : Senior Advocate HS Phoolka on Thursday apprised the Supreme Court about the sham trial that has taken place in the 1984 cases.
Senior Advocate HS Phoolka cited the SIT report which was filed on November 29, 2019. According to the SIT report, in FIR No 433/84 PS Kalyanpuri, while police after clubbing various cases sent a challan in respect of the murder of 56 persons, the trial court framed charges only in respect of the killing of 5 persons and no change was framed in respect of remaining murders.
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 in respect of the rest of the murderers/accused persons, 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 5 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 the 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.
A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and PS Narasimha took the report of the Special Investigation Team on record and adjourned the hearing for two weeks. The court also asked Senior Advocate HS Phoolka to file a note.
The court was hearing Petitioner S Gurlad Singh Kahlon, who had sought the court's direction for setting up of the SIT to ensure speedy justice for the riot victims.
