The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday dismissed the applications of seven accused seeking quashing of chargesheets and proceedings against them in separate cases related to 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Kanpur after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, calling the nature of incidents similar to “genocide” and that “final reports were submitted in hurried manner”.
Rejecting the petitions, the single bench of Justice Anish Kumar Gupta observed, “The nature of the incidents was like a genocide against a particular community in which various innocent persons were killed, ablazed alive, house and properties were burnt, destroyed and looted.”
The court further said, “Such a large scale crime, committed against humanity gone unnoticed and in almost all such cases the final reports were submitted in a hurried manner to save various accused persons, who were involved in the incident.”
The order stated that the Supreme Court had appointed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a retired high court judge to investigate the anti-Sikh riots cases across the nation while hearing writ petitions filed in 2016-17 on the basis of the Nanavati Commission report. In Uttar Pradesh, the SIT found a total of 186 cases and out of them, 20 were identified in Kanpur City.
The SIT was formed specifically to investigate the cases in Kanpur city after seeking permission from the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM). Out of the 20 cases of Kanpur Nagar, the SIT filed chargesheets in 11 of such cases after re-investigation and re-examining the available witnesses. After re-investigation, the chargesheets were filed against the accused persons, including the seven applicants who approached the high court for quashing of these chargesheets and proceedings.
The cases against the seven accused were lodged at different police stations of Kanpur city like Naubasta, Kidwai Nagar, Govind Nagar, Amapur and charges are heinous including dacoity with murder, destroying house/property.
The SIT, which started the re-investigation had filed chargesheets in these cases in 2022 and 2023, and the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court, Kanpur, summoned the accused to begin the proceedings after taking cognizance against them.
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Hearing the applications, the bench stated all the seven applications are related to the anti-Sikh riots. “The common features in all these cases are immediately after the incidents, First Information Reports were lodged, however, in all these cases, final reports were submitted exonerating all the accused persons,” the court stated.
In these Kanpur cases, the SIT reconstructed the FIR with the permission obtained from the CMM and the investigation was conducted. During the investigation, the SIT recorded the statement of the witnesses and on the basis of the statements and the documents collected by the investigation agencies, the accused persons were identified and chargesheeted, the bench stated.
“Almost in all the cases, the Investigation Agency has tried to collect the records of the previous investigations carried out in the aforesaid cases, however, it was informed by the official witnesses that the original records were weeded in the year 1990 as per the directions issued by the then Superintendent of Police. The aforesaid facts were also recorded in the investigations carried out by the CB-CID in the year 1991. Thus in the office of the police record room, the documents such as case diary, final reports and other documents are not available on record with regard to the Sikh riots, therefore, the said documents cannot be provided,” the court stated in the order.
The Record Keepers of the SSP and CMO offices, Kanpur City too, told the agency that the reports regarding the dead persons in the Sikh riots were destroyed by termites. Therefore, the same could not be made available. After concluding the investigation, the chargesheets were filed against the applicants, the court stated.
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The main contention of counsel for the applicants was the original FIR, final reports, postmortem reports, injury report related to the cases are not available. Therefore, a fair trial in these cases is not possible.
The Additional Advocate General appearing for the State, however, submitted that the Apex Court was fully aware that the record of the previous investigation, final report, postmortem report etc., are not available and looking at the plight of the Sikh community, the Apex Court has directed further re-investigation in the instant cases wherever the FIR could be extracted and reconstructed.
The bench of Justice Gupta dismissed all the applications stating prima facie case is made out against the applicants. Merely because a long time has passed during the incident and the investigation cannot be a ground for quashing of the proceedings.
The bench also stated this court has no jurisdiction to interfere with the process of investigation and the trial of the instant cases, which is being done as per the directions of the Apex Court, which has taken judicial notice of the crime committed against humanity.
