1984 anti-Sikh riots: Delhi HC dismisses appeals filed by state, points to delays ranging from 27 to 36 years

Noting that the appeals have been filed after a delay ranging from more than 27 years to 29 years to 36 years, a bench of Justices Prathiba Singh and Amit Sharma said in an order on October 21 said: “In the present case, the delay is 13,420 days i.e., more than 36 years. While this court is conscious of the large-scale loss of human lives and property during the 1984 riots, considering the long delay, the delay is not liable to be condoned, and leave is not liable to be granted.”

The case stems from an acquittal on April 26, 1995, where Om Parkash, Pushpa, Madhu, and Nand Kishore alias Pappu were acquitted of offences including rioting, murder and unlawful assembly, among others. The FIR in the case was registered at the Seemapuri police station in 1984.
In the verdict of July 29, 1995, based on an FIR registered at the Delhi Cantonment police station, Niranjan Kumar, Ram Kumar, and Sharwan Kumar were acquitted of similar charges.

The state had sought the court’s permission to challenge trial court judgments, one from April 26, 1995, another from July 29, 1995, and two others from August 8 and 11, 1986 — passed by a sessions court in New Delhi — where 17 were acquitted.

In the application moved by the state seeking the court’s condonation of delay against this verdict, the state does not explain why it did not appeal against the acquittal since 1995. Explaining the delay between 2019 and 2024 when the appeal was finally filed, the application notes that the file was stuck at the DCP’s office.

The 1986 verdicts had acquitted 10 accused on charges of rioting, dacoity and destruction of evidence. One of the prosecution witnesses in this case, Gurmej Kaur, had deposed that on November 1, 1984, around 2000 people, which included the accused, had come to her house and “caught hold of” her family members and set them ablaze after murdering them.

The state submitted before the division bench of Justices Prathiba Singh and Amit Sharma that the petition had been delayed “primarily due to the Justice S N Dhingra Committee, which submitted the report on April 15, 2019”.

The committee’s report had castigated the police and the administration over their response to the riots, saying their “whole role… seems to have been to hush up the criminal cases concerning the riots”.

“It is after the report was submitted that internal reviews were conducted and matters were processed for filing this leave petition,” the state submitted,

The bench dismissed the state’s appeal, stating that similar delayed appeals were filed in 2023, the HC had refused to condone the delay, and that such dismissals were upheld by the Supreme Court.