NEW DELHI: The central government on Friday moved the Supreme Court, seeking its permission to disband a special investigation team (SIT) set up to oversee further investigation in 186 cases pertaining to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The SIT is headed by former Delhi High Court judge SN Dhingra.
During the hearing, Centre placed the SIT’s final report in a sealed cover before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and justices BR 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.
Senior advocate HS 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.
On this, ASG Anand intervened and said that at this stage, the report of SIT shouldn’t be shared with the petitioners.
However, the bench 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.
This, after the SIT informed that more than 50 per cent of work had been done and it wanted two more months to complete the investigation.
The riots broke out in the national capital in the wake of the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards on the morning of October 31, 1984. Mobs, allegedly incited by Congress leaders, went about unleashing terror on Sikhs.
The violence had claimed 2,733 lives in the city.
The riots represent one of the darkest chapters in the country’s political history. Scores of families, which lived through the horrors of the riots, have been seeking closure for years.