Subhash Tandon

Subhash Tandon, called S.C. Tandon in the Misra and Nanavati reports, was the Commissioner of Police of Delhi when Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 and the Tesra Ghallughara began. The Kusum Lata Mittal Committee describes him as an IPS officer of the Rajasthan cadre who had held the post for a year and a half; before that, it understands, he served in the CISF and for about 17 years in the Intelligence Bureau. The Nanavati Commission says the Commissioner was the head of the Delhi Police, which came under the Lt. Governor, P.G. Gavai.

His own account, as the Nanavati Commission records it, is that he gave his subordinates instructions as the situation worsened, that the force was highly inadequate, that he asked the Home Ministry for paramilitary force and for police from outside, that he told the Lt. Governor on 1 November that the Army should be requisitioned, and that he was kept busy with arrangements at Teen Murti Bhawan, where Indira Gandhi's body lay, and for her cremation. He says he also went to Gurdwara Rakab Ganj and persuaded the granthi to ask those on the terrace not to fire. The Nanavati Commission issued him a notice, and he asked that his statement to the Misra Commission be treated as his deposition.

• 31 October 1984: he was at a CRP parade when he heard of the shooting and reached AIIMS at about 10.05 a.m., the Mittal Committee says. It adds that the GOC Delhi Area told it that Tandon got in touch with him only at 11.30 p.m. that day.
• 12 November 1984: he relinquished charge as Commissioner (Mittal para 11.2). S.S. Jog succeeded him as Commissioner, Wikipedia's list of Delhi's police commissioners shows.
• 1986: the Misra Commission said his statement that adequate Army personnel were not available in Delhi "has turned out to be without basis", finding that at least 5,000 Army men were in Delhi by midnight of 31 October. It said the delay in calling the Army was of the Delhi Administration, "squarely of the Lt. Governor and the Commissioner of Police".
• The Kusum Lata Mittal Committee gave a whole chapter of its report to him. It concluded that, though he may have been a "well-intentioned" officer, he "miserably failed to cope with the crisis" he faced (para 11.22).
• 2005: the Nanavati Commission said he was directly responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Delhi, that there was a "colossal failure" of it, and that as head of the police force he had to be held responsible (p. 178).

The Government's Action Taken Report on the Nanavati report, tabled in August 2005, said he was replaced on 12 November 1984 and had since retired, and that there were legal difficulties in taking departmental action against retired government servants (as reported by Outlook).

He is remembered in this history as the head of the police force that, by the findings of three inquiries, failed to protect Delhi's Sikhs.