Supreme Court questions Delhi HC decision to re-open 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Delhi High Court’s decision to re-open a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against former MLA Mahender Yadav, 31 years after he was acquitted by a local court.(Representational Image) 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Delhi High Court’s decision to re-open a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against former MLA Mahender Yadav, 31 years after he was acquitted by a local court.

“Under what procedure it has been done? On what basis this order has been passed? Rightly or wrongly this man was acquitted in 1986 and none challenged the judgment for more than 30 years. All of a sudden in some other matter this order is passed,” a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.

Senior advocate H S Phoolka, who appeared for the riot victims, told the bench that eyewitnesses were not summoned, the trial was closed in three months and the High Court had cited Zahira Sheikh’s case of the 2002 Gujarat riots as a precedent.

However, the bench said there was a distinction between the present case and Zahira’s case. “In that case, someone had challenged the order. Here, no one challenged it… Judges should not involve themselves in such cases,” Justice Misra said.