The Supreme Court-established SIT which was headed by Justice S. N. Dhingra, criticised "indifferent police and insensitive trial judges" for the "complete failure of justice" in the 1984 Sikh riots cases, which involved hundreds of murders. It also accused the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry for the inordinate delay in filing initial complaints for heinous crimes.
“In the name of investigation, almost nothing was done by police; acquittals were handed down by judges, not alive to the situation of1984 riots, in a routine manner; and Justice Misra commission received hundreds of affidavits from kin of victims of riots, but failed to direct police to register FIRs, which were delayed by years resulting in acquittal” - are some of the findings of the SIT.
According to the report's executive summary, which was submitted in April 2019 but only made public last week, "the basic reason for these crimes remaining unpunished and culprits getting away scot free was lack of interest shown by the (Delhi) Police and the authorities in handling these cases according to the law or to proceed with the intention of punishing the culprits." A few parts of the study were previously released by the media, but it is only now that specifics of police apathy and court insensitivity have been made public.
A bench of Justices A S Bopanna and P S Narasimha posted the matter after two weeks after hearing brief arguments made by senior advocates H S Phoolka, who appeared for petitioner S Gurlad Singh Kahlon, and V Mohana, who appeared for the central government. In an affidavit, the Center requested that the Justice Dhingra SIT be disbanded because its job has been accomplished.
