Ved Marwah

Ved Marwah (Ved Prakash Marwah, 1932 to 2020) was an Indian Police Service officer who, as an additional commissioner of Delhi Police, was given the task of inquiring into the conduct of the police during the November 1984 killing of Sikhs in Delhi. His inquiry was the first official look at the police's part, and it was stopped before it reported.

Key moments

• November 1984: the Marwah inquiry was set up to examine the role of the police in the violence (The Tribune's chronology, ThePrint). The Caravan reports that the Delhi Police Commissioner, S. S. Jog, said he assigned Marwah an administrative inquiry covering what had gone wrong in the police and administration and who was individually responsible.
• Mid-1985: as the inquiry neared completion, the Central Government directed it not to proceed, because the Misra Commission had been appointed. The Caravan dates the closure to May 1985 on that stated ground. ThePrint says the government under Rajiv Gandhi ordered it to stop. Marwah told the Caravan's reporter that the order to wind up came from Jog. Jog told the same reporter that he had assigned the inquiry and had left Delhi before it was completed.
• The complete records were taken over by the government and later passed to the Misra Commission, but Marwah's handwritten notes, described by the Tribune's chronology as the most important part of the record, were not transferred.
• 1985 to 1988: Commissioner of Delhi Police. 1988 to 1990: Director General of the National Security Guard. He received the Padma Shri in 1989.
• He was Governor of Manipur (1999 to 2003), of Mizoram with additional charge (2000 to 2001) and of Jharkhand (2003 to 2004). He died in Goa on 5 June 2020, aged 87.

What he is remembered for: the inquiry that did not finish. The Tribune's chronology counts ten commissions and committees appointed by the government after the violence, and Marwah's was set up in that same November. It was stopped when nearly complete.