Justice Dalip Kapur

Justice Dalip Kumar Kapur (Dalip K. Kapur; spelt Kapoor in the Nanavati report and in the summary printed with the committee's report) was a judge of the Delhi High Court and its Chief Justice. In 1987 he became one of the two members of the committee that was to inquire into the conduct of the Delhi Police during the November 1984 killings of Sikhs. His report was not the one the Government acted on; the findings that named officers came from the other member, Kusum Lata Mittal.

Key moments

• 20 August 1924: born. He studied in Lahore and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and enrolled as an advocate in 1951 (Delhi High Court profile).
• 4 November 1970: additional judge of the Delhi High Court; permanent judge from 4 September 1974. 22 December 1985: Chief Justice. He retired on 20 August 1986 (Delhi High Court profile).
• 23 February 1987: he was appointed with Kusum Lata Mittal, a retired Secretary to the Government of India, by order of the Administrator of Delhi, to inquire into the delinquencies and the good conduct of individual police officers and men (Mittal report, Introduction).
• 1987 to 1990: the committee was given no legal powers. A summary printed with its report says that, without power to examine police officials, Kapur felt he could not indict any of them. The members also disagreed on method: Mittal wanted to examine only the records, Kapur to collect other material too (Nanavati report, p. 3).
• 1 March 1990: he submitted his report; a supplementary survey followed on 2 April 1990 (Nanavati report, p. 3).

What happened to his report: The Nanavati Commission's report records that the Home Ministry found it “a sort of sociological analysis” that “dealt in generalities only” and did not identify the failings of individual police officials, and that the Government therefore accepted Mittal's report, on which 72 police officers were indicted (pp. 3 to 4). ThePrint attributes the indictment of 72 officers to Kapur; the Nanavati Commission and the summary printed with the committee's report attribute it to Mittal, and this page follows them.

What he is remembered for: as the retired Chief Justice whose half of the inquiry named no officer. The summary printed with the report says the committee had to “plod for three years” because the Government never gave it power to summon officials and record evidence.