Marwah inquiry into the Delhi Police after November 1984

Who: Ved Marwah, then Additional Commissioner of Police, held the inquiry for the Delhi Administration. Police Commissioner S.S. Jog and two Deputy Commissioners, Chander Prakash (South Delhi) and Sewa Dass (East Delhi), were drawn into it.

What: The Delhi Administration set up the inquiry on 25 November 1984, within four weeks of the violence, to find serious failures by individual police officers, good work worth rewarding, and the force's shortages (Misra Commission report). Marwah told the Nanavati Commission that he examined documents, witnesses, police officers and members of the public, and that the Commissioner of Police ordered him to stop, at the end of March or the start of April 1985, before he could examine senior officers. He told the Misra Commission that he had found prima facie lapses by DCPs, ACPs and station house officers, and that he was told to stop because a judicial inquiry was beginning. ThePrint says instead that the Central Government ordered it to stop in mid-1985.

The inquiry was then used to keep courts away. The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition by PUDR and PUCL of 26 November 1984 for a CBI-led commission because of the promised Marwah investigation (Ensaaf), and on 4 October 1985 declined to act on another petition after an official said the inquiry "was about to be completed" (Misra). On 25 November 1985, on a suit by Chander Prakash and Sewa Dass, the High Court restrained Marwah and Jog from publishing the report or sending it to the Lieutenant Governor or the Union; Ensaaf says Justice M.K. Chawla's order praised the police. The Delhi Administration did not try to lift it. The Misra Commission called the criticism of this "justified" and said the two officers were "afraid of facing the inquiry".

Retired Chief Justice Ranjit Singh Narula told the Nanavati Commission that Marwah's handwritten notes "were destroyed under instructions of higher authorities". In 2018 the Delhi High Court recorded that the statements Marwah recorded were to go to the Misra Commission but "for unexplained reasons" did not.

Where: Delhi: the Delhi Police and the Delhi High Court.

Why it mattered: It was the first official look at the Delhi Police's part in the Tesra Ghallughara, and it ended before it named anyone. The Misra Commission declined to name any officer and recommended a fresh inquiry by a judge and a civilian, which led to the Kapur-Mittal committee of 23 February 1987.