’84 riots: SC sets up new SIT to probe 186 cases
Court scanned a supervisory panel report that scrutinised 241 cases closed between Feb 2015 & Aug 2017
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that 186 cases from the 1984 anti-sikh riots in Delhi be reopened and probed by a three-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by a retired high court judge.
The court said it will nominate the members of the probe team on Thursday, after a consensus between the petitioners and the government on who should be a part of it.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra took the decision after going through a supervisory panel’s report that scrutinised 241 cases closed by a central government-appointed SIT between February 2015 and August 2017. The supervisory panel of Justices JM Panchal and KSP Radhakrishnan submitted their report in a sealed cover on December 6, 2017.
Senior advocate HS Phoolka, appearing for the families of the riot victims, suggested the names of three retired judges as the possible chairman of the probe team — former Delhi high court Chief Justice AP Shah, former Punjab and Haryana high court chief justice Mukul Mudgal, and former Delhi high court judge SN Dhingra — but the bench said it wanted a list from the government as well.
The other two members will be an IPS officer of the rank of inspector general and a serving IPS officer of the rank of superintendent of police, the bench said.
The court wanted to finalise the members of the SIT but additional solicitor general Pinky Anand requested for an adjournment, saying the government needed a day to put a list of candidates together.
“The bench’s decision to have an SIT under a retired HC judge is good news for the victims who have been waiting for justice for the last 33 years,” Phoolka said.
In one of the darkest chapters in Delhi’s history, nearly 3,000 people were killed after riots that broke out following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Some senior politicians, many of them from the Congress party, were accused of inciting violence and fomenting tensions.
After reading the supervisory panel’s report, the bench said it was advised not to reopen cases in which accused had been acquitted. NEWDELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Wednesday put in place a twolayer security mechanism to reinforce privacy protection for Aadhaar ID number holders. It introduced a virtual identification for the ID holders so that the actual Aadhaar number need not be shared to authenticate identity. It also placed more restrictions on the storage of the Aadhaar number within various databases.
The idea behind the changes is to address privacy concerns that have resulted in a legal challenge to Aadhaar in the Supreme Court, and also to prevent potential misuse of an individual’s Aadhaar details.
UIDAI has been under the scanner over the past few months over allegations of access of personal information by random entities without the consent of individual Aadhaar holders.
The virtual ID will be a 16-digit random number mapped with the Aadhaar number. It can only be generated, replaced or revoked by the Aadhaar number holder from time to time.
“It will not be possible to derive the Aadhaar number from the virtual ID,” said a UIDAI circular.
Till now, a person had to give his or her 12-digit identity number along with other attributes (demographic and/or biometrics and/or through a one-time password) during authentication or E-KYC (know your customer) for accessing various benefits and services from service providers such as banks or telcos.
UIDAI also introduced the concept of a limited KYC category that does not access the Aadhaar number.