NEW DELHI, AUGUST 8: Twenty years after hundreds of Sikhs were massacred in the Capital, a judicial inquiry has for the first time given a finding that Congress leaders were involved in it.
The Justice G T Nanavati Commission, which was set up in 2000 to undo the "whitewash" by the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission in 1986, has indicted, among others, a minister in the Manmohan Singh Government, Jagdish Tytler, and Congress MP from the Outer Delhi constituency, Sajjan Kumar.
But, having waited till the last permissible day to table the Nanavati Commission’s report in Parliament, the Government today rejected the finding against Tytler on a ground that is bound to trigger a legal controversy.
The Commission concluded that there was "credible evidence against Jagdish Tytler to the effect that very probably he had a hand in organizing attacks on Sikhs."
In its action taken report (ATR), the Government however interpreted these carefully chosen words to mean that "the Commission itself was not absolutely sure about his involvement in such attacks."
And then, turning Indian jurisprudence on its head, the Government claimed that "in criminal cases, a person cannot be prosecuted simply on the basis of ‘probability."(link)
If you were waiting for justice, too bad: as often happens with Indian justice, all you get is bupkis.
Incidentally, some of these guys faced criminal trials earlier, but no one has ever been convicted of anything. Sajjan Kumar, most famously, was acquitted for his involvement in 2002. Both Kumar and Tytler are still in the Congress government.
More recent coverage of Nanavati here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
[Cross-posted at Sepia Mutiny]