Justice Dhingra-led SIT to re-investigate anti-sikh riots cases

NEW DELHI: Former Delhi high court judge justice SN Dhingra will head the three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to re-investigate 186 anti-sikh riots cases of 1984, the Supreme Court ordered on Thursday.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra also appointed serving IPS officer Abhishek Dular and retired inspector general-rank officer Rajdeep Singh as SIT members.

The bench asked the team to submit its first status report in two months and fixed March 19 to hear the matter again.

The order came after additional solicitor general Pinky Anand handed over a note she received from the ministry of home affairs, giving the names. There was no opposition by the petitioner to the recommendation.

Justice Dhingra headed the one-man commission constituted by the Haryana government to probe the alleged irregularities in land deals, including some linked to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra.

He retired from the high court in March 2011. As a trial court judge in Delhi, he had convicted and sentenced Afzal Guru to death for his involvement in the Parliament attack case.

The Supreme Court had on Wednesday ordered that the 186 cases be reopened and probed by an SIT headed by a retired HC judge. The court had, however, postponed naming the members after Anand said she needed time to suggest the same.

The bench 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 justice JM Panchal and justice KSP Radhakrishnan submitted their report in a sealed cover on December 6, 2017.

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 the accused were acquitted. The court had asked the panel to examine 241 cased closed by the Centre’s SIT, which investigated 293 cases in all.