With the collapse of the case against H. K. L. Bhagat, the continuing state of impunity for others such as Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, and a change in government, human rights lawyer H. S. Phoolka pushed for a fresh judicial inquiry in 1999.1 

The cause was taken up by the Akali Dal Party, which had become part of the ruling BJP-led coalition government, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister.

On 10 May 2000, the NDA appointed Justice G. T. Nanavati, a retired Supreme Court judge, as the sole member of an eponymous commission to investigate a broad range of issues, including the causes of the ‘criminal violence and riots’ that targeted members of the Sikh community, the sequence of events leading up to the ‘violence and riots’, and whether any authorities or individuals were responsible.2

Nanavati was a controversial choice – less than two years earlier he was part of a two-member Supreme Court bench that had commuted the death sentence for ‘the butcher of Trilokpuri’, Kishori Lal, to life imprisonment. The judgement excused Lal’s actions as having been committed under the influence of the ‘collective fury’ of the mob, which was not deemed to be working in an ‘organised systematic’ way. The absence of medical evidence (from the bodies having already been disposed of by the police) also went in Lal’s favour, as did the ‘redeeming feature’ that the mob he was a part of had not killed women or children.3

Nanavati was required to report his findings to government within six months but it took him five years to complete his work, the final report being submitted in February 2005. By this time Congress had returned to power with Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi’s widow, as the party’s president and Dr Manmohan Singh as India’s first Sikh prime minister (in 1984 he had been governor of the Reserve Bank of India). The government sat on the report for a full six months before finally tabling it on 8 August 2005 – the last day it could be submitted by law for consideration by parliament. 

When the report went public, there was widespread outrage at its findings. Veteran human rights activist Professor Uma Chakravarti summed it up as a ‘damp squib, wishy-washy and reads like a whodunit without an ending’.4

During his investigations, Nanavati found he had six thousand fresh affidavits to work with in response to public notices issued by the Commissions. These included those given by politicians, policemen, survivors and witnesses. A further eighty-nine individuals who had not previously filed affidavits, including police officials, politicians and army officers, were invited to be questioned by the Commission.5

Once again, the final report contained a number of disconcerting, if not downright outrageous, errors, omissions and vagueness of language. In his opening remarks, Nanavati counted the death toll as being in the ‘hundreds’, while further on he stated merely that certain Congress leaders were ‘probably’ involved.6

Nanavati also didn’t take into account crucial evidence that may well have led to him to conclude that the violence was genocidal in nature – the use of housing and other lists to identify targets, the airing of hate slogans on state media, the incitement to violence by local Congress leaders at political meetings, the large number of attacks on gurdwaras, the shearing of male hair and the mass rapes.

However, in discussing the horrific nature of the attacks, including the act of ‘necklacing’ and use of kerosene, Nanavati concluded that ‘what had initially started as an angry outburst became an organised carnage.’ It then became ‘systematic’ in nature, and was conducted without ‘fear of the police’. He highlighted how mobs ‘were assured that they would not be harmed while committing those acts and even hereafter’.7

None of this, concluded the judge, could have occurred without the ‘help of influential and resourceful persons’ who helped with ‘the provisions of weapons and transportation of killers [which] required an organised effort’. But, he failed to identify who those ‘influential and resourceful persons’ were or establish their roles. He came close when he gave weight to the evidence of meetings being held on 31 October in which ‘persons who could organize attacks… were given instructions to kill Sikhs and loot their houses and shops’. Ultimately, though, he didn’t point the finger of blame, and so implicate senior politicians and confirm the conspiracy to commit genocidal massacres.

Since so many affidavits incriminated local Congress leaders and workers, Nanavati explored the possible involvement of each leader in turn. 

On the evidence of several witnesses who testified that Jagdish Tytler led mobs and complained to them that fewer Sikhs had been killed in his constituency than elsewhere, the Commission found ‘credible evidence against Shri Jagdish Tytler to the effect that very probably he had a hand in organising attacks on Sikhs’.8

As a result of a protest movement initiated by widows and orphans (who had to endure police water cannons and baton-charges) and supported by several opposition parties, Tytler was forced to resign from his government post as minister for non-resident Indians affairs on 10 August 2005, two days after the report was made public. Prosecuting him, however, was another matter and proved elusive. A subsequent CBI investigation absolved him, claiming that witness statements were ‘inconsistent, unreliable and unworthy of credit’.

The case against Sajjan Kumar was the strongest; the five testimonies against this one MP exceeded any of the other accused, particularly his alleged involvement in the massacres at Mangolpuri and Sultanpuri. Nanavati took the view that there was ‘credible material’ against Kumar that showed he was ‘probably involved as alleged by witnesses’. However, the Commission’s recommendations to government to only pursue those cases in which charge sheets had not yet been filed meant that, where acquittals had previously taken place, as had happened to Kumar, those cases should not be reopened.

The day after Tytler resigned, Kumar followed suit. On the strength of Nanavati’s comments and unrelenting protests, he was forced to relinquish the chairmanship of the Delhi Rural Development Board.9

The fresh CBI investigation initiated against him rolled on for several years. When the case finally had its day in court in 2012, CBI prosecutor, R. S. Cheema, said the massacres were a result of a conspiracy of terrifying proportion with the complicity of police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar. In spite of the evidence against him, and his five co-defendants being convicted, Kumar was acquitted, prompting another wave of protests.

Although Bhagat and other Congress leaders such as Rampal Saroj and Dr Ashok Gupta were found to be guilty for their role in the Trilokpuri massacres, the Commission failed to recommend further action against them, citing their acquittals in earlier criminal cases – even though these had been fraught with poor police investigations and witness intimidation. Bhagat by then was deemed unfit for trial as he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He died in October 2005, having escaped justice for over twenty years.

In the case of Kamal Nath, only one witness, Mukhtiar Singh, testified to him having led an armed mob that attacked Sikhs at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj on the morning of 1 November, resulting in two being burnt to death.10 Others such as the journalist Sanjay Suri had seen Nath ‘controlling’ the crowd in the aftermath of the killings.11 Nath’s defence was that he was merely visiting the gurdwara to investigate the agitation and to placate the mob.

The Commission found Nath’s testimony to be ‘vague’ and ‘not consistent with the evidence’ – it also thought it ‘a little strange’ that he left without informing police officers, with whom he was seen standing with for some time. The contradictions were justified by the Commission on the grounds that the matters under discussion had occurred twenty years earlier, so ‘he was not able to give more details’. Nanavati said that it would not be ‘proper’ to reach the conclusion that Nath had in any way ‘instigated the mob’.

In the case of Dharam Dass Shastri, Nanavati found there was evidence suggesting he ‘was actively involved in the riots’. He had been identified by witnesses as having led a mob that looted and burned Sikh houses and was known to have later marched with local leaders and 3,000 people to Karol Bagh Police Station to demand the release of rioters for looting. He had threatened police officers ‘with dire consequences if they took any action against those persons for being in possession of looted property’. Nanavati’s recommendation that Shastri’s role be further investigated came to nothing as he died before the CBI could file a case against him.

Several people testified to the inaction, indifference and ineffectiveness of the then home minister and former prime minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao. Sharad Yadav, General-Secretary of the Lok Dal Party, met him twice on 1 November and found him to be ‘almost indifferent and he did not respond to any of the requests for taking prompt action’.

Former prime minister, I. K. Gujral, also appeared before the Commission and gave evidence. He testified that Rao did not appear to be in possession of all the facts about the violence, though he appeared to be deeply involved with the planning around the foreign VVIPs who would be attending Indira Gandhi’s funeral. Rao admitted that ‘he was aware that Police was not able to handle the situation and that he was taking steps to call the Army’. Rao’s competency was also called into question by others who met him at the time, including the historian Patwant Singh, former Minister for Law and Justice, Shanti Bhushan, and Lieutenant General J. S. Aurora.12

Nanavati, however, was quick to exonerate Rao, stating that in his opinion there was ‘no delay or indifference at the level of the Home Minister’. Rao had passed away in December 2004, just over a month before Nanavati submitted his report to government, yet Mitta and Phoolka asserted that the judgement in his favour had been political – finding Rao, a former prime minister, to be at fault would have had serious ramifications for the ruling Congress Party under the stewardship of Sonia Gandhi.13

Equally, Nanavati went to great lengths to absolve Rajiv Gandhi. He had been assassinated in 1991 by Tamil separatists while campaigning in South India. At the time, he had been personally implicated in the Bofors scandal, involving bribery in connection with a high-profile arms deal, which had severely damaged his image as an honest politician and lost him the 1989 election. However, a Delhi High Court had posthumously cleared the ex-prime minister of any wrongdoing in the scandal in February 2004. A year later, Nanavati would follow suit in terms of 1984.

In fact, his report was somewhat gushing in its claims that Rajiv Gandhi had shown ‘much concern’ about what was happening in the capital. ‘He had issued an appeal for remaining calm and maintaining communal harmony,’ going so far as to visiting ‘the affected areas’ on the night of 1 November.

The testimony of journalist, historian and former vice-president of the BJP, K. R. Malkani – that he had been told by colleagues that ‘Shri Rajiv Gandhi had whispered into the ears of that senior officer that “Yes, we must teach them a lesson”’ – was deemed to have no substance behind it. Nanavati cast doubt on the context and found this piece of evidence ‘vague’ and ‘not believable’.

In a strident vindication, Nanavati concluded that there was ‘absolutely no evidence suggesting that Shri Rajiv Gandhi or any other high-ranking Congress (I) leader had suggested or organised attacks on Sikhs’. The implication that only local Congress leaders were involved overlooked in particular the role of Arun Nehru, who escaped all scrutiny.

Furthermore, all police officials in the worst affected areas of East and West Delhi were acquitted. Nanavati justification was that police departmental inquiries had already exonerated them. The records of the subsequently held disciplinary proceedings against the police officers were kept secret.

Crucial records relating to the deployment of the army were either not released or reported missing. These included the affidavits from the Misra Commission of the army’s then chief of staff, A. S. Vaidya, and of Major Sandhu of the 15th Sikh Light Infantry – whose troops were the first to patrol Delhi in serious numbers on the morning of 1 November but were ordered back to barracks just as the mass killings commenced.14

There was also no examination of the reports of the violence that occurred on trains or the forty-six unauthorised stoppages that enabled the mobs to hunt down Sikh passengers. No investigation into these killings was ever carried out and not a single person was arrested by the Railway Police Force from 31 October to 4 November. Despite scores of affidavits and witness testimonies outlining the scale of the killings, Nanavati decided against pursuing the trail, stating that ‘no one has made any grievance as regards the incidents which had happened at Railway Stations or in trains’.

During a parliamentary debate on the Nanavati report in August 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Sikh himself, apologised for what had happened:

I have no hesitation in apologising not only to the Sikh community but the whole Indian nation because what took place in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood and what is enshrined in our Constitution.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 11 August 2005.15

Citing Nanavati, he refused to accept that the upper echelons of a Congress government were in any way responsible for the events of November 1984: ‘The Report is before us, and one thing it conclusively states is that there is no evidence, whatsoever, against the top leadership of the Congress Party’. He continued, referring to the massacres as ‘riots’, criticised the Akali Dal for their ‘divisive rhetoric’ and ended with hopes for a national reconciliation.

But for many, the Nanavati Commission had failed to secure the closure the country so desperately needed. As Siddharth Varadarajan, the then deputy editor of The Hindu, would so eloquently remark:

Modern states do not allow small men like Jagdish Tytler, Dharam Dass Shastri and Sajjan Kumar to unleash – as part of some sort of private initiative – murder on a genocidal scale. Modern states do not allow their police system to fall apart, except by design. Modern states do not allow Army commanders to say they do not have enough troops to do the job at hand. Littered through Mr Justice Nanavati’s text are all the tell-tale dots of official guilt but these have been left unconnected, allowing the institutional rot to remain and infect our body politic once again.

Siddharth Varadarajan, ‘Moral Indifference as the Form of Modern Evil’, The Hindu, 12 August 2005
Read more: Nanavati Commission of Inquiry (2005)

In 2002, as part of a submission to the Nanavati Commission, lawyer, Vrinda Grove presented a detailed research study on the responses of the legal system to the incidents of violence in October – November, 1984.

The 2005 Nanavati Commission of Inquiry into the 1984 Sikh Genocide.

  1. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 190. ↩︎
  2. Justice Nanavati Commission of Inquiry (1984 Anti-Sikh Riots). 2004. ↩︎
  3. ‘Kishori vs State Of Delhi’, Supreme Court of India, 1 December 1998. ↩︎
  4. Uma Chakravarti, ‘Long Road to Nowhere: Justice Nanavati’, Economic & Political Weekly, 27 August 2005. ↩︎
  5. Justice Nanavati Commission of Inquiry (1984 Anti-Sikh Riots). 2004. ↩︎
  6. ibid ↩︎
  7. ibid. ↩︎
  8. ibid. ↩︎
  9. Sajjan Kumar resigns from Delhi govt post’, Outlook, 11 August 2005 ↩︎
  10. Affidavit of Mukhtiar Singh submitted to the Nanavati Commission. ↩︎
  11. Affidavit of Sanjay Suri submitted to Nanavati Commission. ↩︎
  12. Affidavit of Lt. Gen. (Retd) J.S. Aurora submitted to Nanavati Commission. ↩︎
  13. Manoj Mitta and Harvinder Phoolka, When a Tree Shook Delhi, 2007, p 57. ↩︎
  14. Patwant Singh, The Sikhs, 1999, p 238 ↩︎
  15. PM’s intervention during the debate in Lok Sabha on motion for adjournment on
    need to take action against persons indicated by Nanavati Commission’,
    Lok Sabha, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 11 August 2005 ↩︎