Pramod Asthana

Pramod Asthana is an officer of the Indian Police Service who chaired the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that the Home Ministry set up in February 2015 to re-examine closed cases from the November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi. WION describes him as an IPS officer of the 1986 batch, and ThePrint as a senior IPS officer.

The team: The Home Ministry's press release of 13 February 2015 named the three members: Asthana as chairman, Rakesh Kapoor, a retired district and sessions judge, and Kumar Gyanesh, an Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police in Delhi. ThePrint says the Government set it up after the committee under Justice G. P. Mathur recommended an SIT. The team was to re-investigate serious criminal cases from the November 1984 killings of Sikhs in Delhi that had been closed, to file chargesheets in the proper court where the evidence was sufficient, and to report within six months.

What it did and what followed: In 2017 the Attorney General told the Supreme Court, citing the Home Ministry's SIT report, that the team had taken up 293 cases, closed 199 of them after scrutiny, sent 59 for further investigation and filed chargesheets in four (LiveLaw). On 16 August 2017 the Court appointed a supervisory body of two former Supreme Court judges to examine the closures. On 11 January 2018 a bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, in WION's report, that the previous SIT had not carried out a further probe into 186 cases and that a fresh SIT should be constituted; the new team was headed by the retired Delhi High Court judge S. N. Dhingra. ThePrint wrote in November 2018 that the first team was the one whose work led to the conviction of two men, Naresh Sherawat and Yashpal Singh, for murder by a Delhi sessions court.

Key moments

• 13 February 2015: the Home Ministry names him chairman of the three-member SIT.
• 2017: the SIT's figures reach the Supreme Court: 293 cases, 199 closed, chargesheets in four.
• 16 August 2017: the Court names two former judges to examine the closures.
• 11 January 2018: the Court orders a fresh SIT under S. N. Dhingra.
• November 2018: two men are convicted of murder in a case ThePrint ties to his team.

What he is remembered for: for heading the first government team on the 1984 cases, whose closures the Supreme Court later found had not been followed by a further probe. The Court's words, as WION reports them, concern the team's work and do not name him.