Kusum Lata Mittal

Kusum Lata Mittal (also spelt Kusum Latta Mittal; “Kumari” in the order appointing her) was a retired Secretary to the Government of India. With Justice Dalip Kapur she was appointed on 23 February 1987 to inquire into the conduct of the Delhi Police during the November 1984 killings of Sikhs. Her report, completed in August 1988 and submitted on 28 February 1990, indicted 72 police officers. A summary printed with it says it was the first report to name the officials who connived with the mobs.

How she worked

• The order of 23 February 1987 told the committee to enquire into the delinquencies of individual police officers and men and also their good conduct, and to recommend action (Mittal report, Introduction).
• The Government did not agree to give the committee powers under Section 11 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, so it remained “purely an Administrative Committee”; full use of the Misra Commission's records was cleared only on 8 January 1988 (paras 5 and 8).

What she found

• She named officers for commendation as well as for action; among those she commended was Central District DCP Amod Kanth (para 1.6).
• She called Additional Commissioner H. C. Jatav's role “questionable, partisan and inexcusable” (chapter 4), wrote that officers like DCP Chander Prakash “have no place in a disciplined force” (para 7.132), and that it was “a shame” that Sultanpuri's SHO H. R. Bhatti was still in service and not prosecuted (para 6.47). Of Additional Commissioner Gautam Kaul she wrote that he “did his best within his limitations” (para 8.8).
• The summary printed with the report says she quoted wireless messages to show that Sewa Dass, DCP East, was warned of the Trilokpuri killings from the afternoon of 1 November, and took note of the “criminal misconduct” of Trilokpuri's SHO, Shoorveer Singh Tyagi.
• Of the police as a whole she wrote that they were “caught napping and completely unprepared” (para 12.1) and that some senior officers “manipulated their wireless log books to cover up their tracks” (para 12.16). She recommended that an outside agency act against officers, since departmental inquiries by Delhi Police officers “are not likely to yield any results” (para 12.24).

What came of it: The Government decided to accept her report, as the Nanavati Commission records, and to take action against the officers on the basis of it. Of the 72 officers, the Home Ministry was the disciplinary authority for six, the Chief Secretary or Lieutenant Governor for 14 and the Commissioner of Police for 52. Thirteen had retired and three had died before action began and 12 were exonerated; one inquiry was quashed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, one pension was reduced and three cases stayed pending. Of 39 non-gazetted officers, 35 were inquired into and 32 exonerated (Nanavati report, pp. 3 to 4). The summary printed with her report says the indictment “has come to nothing”.