1984 anti-Sikh riots: Centre seeks SC permission to disband SIT

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday sought the Supreme Court's permission to disband a special investigation team (SIT), headed by former Delhi High Court judge Justice S N Dhingra, saying it has completed its probe into 186 cases of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

The SIT, also comprising retired IPS officer Rajdeep Singh and serving 2006 batch IPS officer Abhishek Dular, was set up by the apex court on January 11 last year to supervise the further investigation into 186 riots cases, in which closure reports were filed earlier. The SIT presently has only two members as Singh had declined to be a part of the team on "personal grounds".

During the hearing on Friday, the Centre placed the SIT's final report in a sealed cover before a bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant. Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand told the bench that since the SIT has done its work and submitted its final report, the team should be discharged now. Anand said the SIT's report has been filed in a sealed cover and it should not be shared with the petitioner at this stage.

Senior advocate H S Phoolka, representing the riot victims, told the bench that the court should first examine the SIT's final report and see if anything more was required to be done by the team before taking a decision on whether to disband it. The bench, after taking on record the SIT's report, said it would hear the matter after two weeks.

Earlier in March, the top court had granted two more months to the SIT to complete its probe into 186 riot cases after the SIT informed it that more than 50 per cent of work was done and it wanted two more months to complete the investigation. Large-scale riots had broken out in the national capital in the aftermath of the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh security guards on the morning of October 31, 1984. The violence had claimed 2,733 lives in Delhi alone.