Eleven persons including former councillor Balwan Khokhar and ex-MLA Mahender Yadav have already been acquitted by a trial court in five cases and the High Court, after perusing case files, on its own took note and issued show cause notices to them.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud declined the plea of Yadav, saying it would not stay the proceedings before the high court.
Aggrieved by the decision, Yadav moved the apex court, saying the high court has no power to suo motu reopen trial in the cases in which he has been acquitted.
The high court had sought the response of those acquitted as to why it should not order reinvestigation and retrial against them as they had faced allegations of "horrifying crimes against humanity".
The trial court records were placed before the high court by the CBI during the hearing of another 1984 riot case in which the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and punishment awarded to other convicts is under challenge by CBI, the riot victims and convicts.
The high court, in five separate verdicts, had expressed unhappiness over the failure of the prosecutors to assist the trial courts and said they had not ensured that truth is brought out and the guilty punished.