No fresh evidence after 40 years, court sets aside FIR order in 1984 riots case
A Delhi court has dismissed a 2017 order to register an FIR regarding the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, citing the lack of fresh evidence after four decades. The judge emphasized that legal proceedings must reach finality and that sympathy for victims cannot override the necessity of a solid legal foundation.
Why it matters
The ruling underscores the challenges of seeking justice for historical atrocities when evidence is stale and contemporaneous accounts are contradictory.
NEW DELHI: More than 40 years after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a Delhi court has set aside a 2017 order directing registration of an FIR into the deaths of two men, holding that a criminal investigation could not be revived decades later in the absence of fresh and credible material.Special judge Bhupinder Singh, while acknowledging the lasting trauma of the riots, said, “Every proceeding must, at some point, reach finality” and sympathy for the loss “cannot substitute for the legal foundation necessary to sustain the proceedings”.The case stemmed from a complaint by riot survivor Amrik Singh, who sought registration of an FIR against then DCP Amod Kanth and then ACP/SHO SS Manan, alleging police inaction and wrongful arrest of his family members.
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