In a scathing report on the way the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases were handled by the police, administration and even judiciary, a Supreme Court appointed SIT has said there was no intention of punishing the culprits and acquittals were "handed over by judges" to the accused in a "routine manner".
The report of the SIT, headed by retired Delhi High Court judge Justice S N Dhingra, has said that "whole efforts" of police and administration "seem to have been to hush up the criminal cases concerning riots".
The cases were registered to give "clean chit" to certain persons, it said.
The report, which was submitted in the apex court, dealt with 186 anti-Sikh riots cases referred to the SIT which was set up by the top court on January 11, 2018 to supervise further probe into these cases in which closure reports were filed earlier.
It said the basic reason for these crimes remaining unpunished and culprits getting scot-free was lack of interest shown by the police and the authorities in handling these cases as per law or to proceed with the intention of punishing those involved.
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The report is also critical of the way these cases were handled by trial courts here and said: "It is not understood how the courts proceeded with trial of several crimes of rioting, murders, arson, looting having taken place at different locations, different times and even different dates together."
The SIT has recommended exploring possibility of filing appeals, along with application for condonation of delay, against the trial court orders of acquittals in some of these cases.
"Acquittals were handed over by judges to accused of 1984 riots in a routine manner," the report said. "None of the judgements on record show that the judges were alive to the situation of 1984 riots and were alive to the fact that for delay in lodging FIRs and statement of witnesses, the victims were not responsible".
It said that due to protracted trial in these cases, the victims and witnesses were so tired of coming to the courts time and again that most of them had given up and those who had not given up, the courts refused to give credibility to their testimony on grounds, including delay in lodging of FIR and in recording evidence.
The report said the scrutiny of files reveals evidence of involvement of the then inspector Survir Singh Tyagi, then SHO of Kalyan Puri police station, in a conspiracy with rioters.
"It was a case where Insp. Survir Singh Tyagi deliberately disarmed local Sikhs of their licensed arms so that rioters could make them victim and cause loss of life and property. He was suspended from service but later on reinstated and promoted as ACP. The committee is of the view that his case be referred to riots cell of Delhi Police for action," it said.
The report said that perusal of files revealed that FIRs were not registered by the police incident-wise or crime-wise and instead, several complaints were clubbed in one FIR.
"Even the judges and magistrate did not give directions to the police to file separate 'challans' (police report) incident-wise/crime-wise," it said.
There was no order of separation of trial incident-wise or crime-wise by the trial judges despite a specific provision in law that challan in each case had to be filed separately and each case has to be tried separately, it said.
"Had the administration and police been serious in punishing the culprits, a special task force for investigating crimes committed within jurisdiction of each police station should have been created by providing necessary infrastructure including forensic teams and labs to this task force," it added.
It said bodies of hundreds of riot victims were recovered and many of them remained unidentified but the police even did not preserve any forensic evidence so that at later stage, the identification could be done.
"The whole efforts of the police and the administration seem to have been to hush up the criminal cases concerning riots," it said.
The report said that 186 cases referred to the SIT had already been dealt with by an earlier SIT, constituted by the Centre in February 2015, which had submitted its report with respect to 199 cases.
"A total of 426 persons were killed in the incidents covered by 199 cases out of which 84 dead bodies remained unidentified. More than two hundred persons were injured. About seven hundred properties including residential houses, shops, vehicles, commercial establishments, places of worship were damaged, looted or burnt," the report said.
It said that out of these 199 cases, 114 were those which involved loss of property through rioting, arson and loot and 31 cases belonged to the category of cases involving bodily injuries with or without property loss.
The report said there were 54 cases under the category of murder, with or without property loss, and trials were conducted in some of these cases but it resulted in acquittal of accused.
It said all these 199 cases were scrutinised for possibility of further action but in none of these cases, further investigation was possible.
The apex court had set up the SIT, also comprising retired IPS officer Rajdeep Singh and serving IPS officer Abhishek Dular, in January 2018. However, Singh had declined to be part of the team on personal grounds.
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