Delhi High Court

The High Court of Delhi was established on 31 October 1966, after Parliament enacted the Delhi High Court Act on 5 September 1966. As the court of the National Capital Territory, it heard many of the cases and petitions that came out of the November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi.

Key moments

• 1987 to 1990: the Jain-Banerjee Committee, appointed in 1987 to examine the cases, could make no progress because the Delhi High Court granted an interim injunction. The Court later quashed its notification, finding that giving it powers was contrary to the Delhi Police Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Delhi Administration then appointed the Poti-Rosha Committee on 23 March 1990 (Nanavati report).
• The Nanavati report also says that the inquiry against DCP Chander Prakash was completed, but its final order could not be served on him because of a restraint order passed by the Delhi High Court.
• 28 November 2018: Justice R. K. Gauba dismissed appeals against the Trilokpuri convictions of 1996 and upheld the five-year sentences. Reports differ on whether 88 or 89 people were convicted, and quote the judgment as saying that after 34 years the victims still awaited justice and closure.
• 17 December 2018: a bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed Sajjan Kumar's acquittal of 2013, convicted him of criminal conspiracy and abetment of murder in the case of five Sikhs killed in the Delhi Cantonment area, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Court called the killings crimes against humanity. As Sikh Siyasat News reads the judgment, it said they were engineered by political actors with the help of law enforcement agencies, and that neither crimes against humanity nor genocide is part of Indian domestic criminal law.
• 11 August 2025: a bench of Justices Subramonium Prasad and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar disposed of the Court's own revision of a 1986 acquittal over the killing of Avtar Singh, because both accused had died, which left only compensation. It held that section 357A of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme, 2018 apply only prospectively, noted that the family had already received Rs 11,90,000 from the Delhi government, and awarded nothing more. It said other victims who had not been compensated could lodge claims, to be verified within sixteen weeks and paid within eight, and told the authorities to publicise this widely.
• 25 August 2026: after Sajjan Kumar's death on 20 August, a bench of Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Vikas Mahajan closed his pending appeal in a Saraswati Vihar murder case, saying it would abate.

Where it stands: It remains the High Court of Delhi. The sources found do not list other 1984 cases now pending before it.