Court should monitor probe into 1984 carnage
A Delhi Sessions Court's order to re-open investigations against senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 carnage against Sikhs in the State should put the party and the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had got the case closed, to shame. The order has also exposed how the Congress worked in tandem with the probe agency to scuttle the investigation and protect the accused. While Congress leaders are now welcoming the order, all through these last 28 years, the party contemptuously dismissed the allegations and promoted Mr Tytler. Soon after the massacre in which he was widely perceived to have had a hand, Mr Tytler became a Union Minister. He nearly got a ticket from his party to contest the lok Sabha election in 2009, but the massive public outrage and the infamous shoe-throwing incident, in which Mr P Chidambaram was the target, nixed the move. But the Congress continued to pamper him, making him in-charge of Odisha and Punjab; he also became a member of the Congress Working Committee. All this happened in the backdrop of the recommendation of the Nanavati Commission that Mr Tytler must be put on trial. The Commission, which was established by the NDA Government, presented its report in 2005 when the Congress-led UPA was in power. Thus, with the Congress continuing to aggressively back the accused, the CBI got the message and went on an overdrive to weaken the case against him. The probe agency refused to record the statements of witnesses it believed could harm the Congress leader's interests. The CBI justified the decision on the ground that the witnesses were unreliable, forgetting in the process that it is not for the agency to take a call on that; the courts determine the credibility of witnesses. But the agency dutifully recorded the statement of Mr Tytler's driver and found it reliable enough to present before the courts! When the Congress leader said he was not at the scene of the crime for which he was being accused, as he was by the side of Indira Gandhi's body lying in state, the CBI did not bother to cross-check.
After having thus indulged in obfuscation and cherry-picking and reluctantly following leads, the probe agency filed a closure report in 2007. When that did not work, the CBI made a show of further investigation and again approached a magistrate's court with a fresh closure report in 2009. This time, the court accepted the agency's contention, and the Congress cheered. But now that flawed decision has been set aside and the CBI will have to re-investigate, much against its wishes. The problem is that the very same discredited probe agency, which has worked overtime to protect Mr Tytler, will be conducting a fresh inquiry under the very same discredited Congress-led regime. A free and fair investigation is not possible in the context of these developments. The probe must be court-monitored at the very least if it is to be conducted by the CBI. Ideally, of course, the court must constitute a Special Investigation Team to inquire into the case and bring to book the likes of Mr Tytler. Meanwhile, let's not forget that the Government awarded the CBI Director who orchestrated the closure report, with a gubernatorial post.