SC rejects plea for fresh probe into Mahatma Gandhi assassination

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by Mumbai-based social activist Dr Pankaj Kumarchandra Phadnis seeking further probe into the assassination of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948.

A Bench of Justices S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao dismissed the petition observing that the petitioner’s attempt to re-open the controversy as an exercise in futility.

The court had appointed senior advocate Amarendra Saran to assist the court to decide a petition filed by Dr. Phadnis and in his report he had categorically stated that there was need for such a probe.  

The petitioner had argued that the pistol by which Godse shot Mahatma had a seven-bullet chamber. Three shots were fired and the Police recovered the remaining four unspent bullets. There was no way the fourth shot could have come from this pistol. It had to be from the gun of a second assassin, no trace of whom survives in any record. According to the petitioner, he moved the court after doing some research about the circumstances in which Gandhiji’s assassination took place and got convinced about the involvement of an unseen hand in the assassination.

Rejecting the plea the Bench said “We are, however, not satisfied that new research into a long concluded matter justifies a re-initiation of criminal investigation or that anything that might be stated should be allowed to reopen a case such as this. Criminal cases which result in conviction and even execution of death sentences and the demise of those who have served life sentences ought not to be reviewed, neither is there a provision in law for review.”

Referring to the argument that the assassination of Gandhiji was an event of far reaching consequences in the world and the nation has the right to know the truth, the Bench said “While undoubtedly the nation has right to know the truth, such a right cannot be invoked where the truth is already well known merely because some academic research raises a different perspective in law. This would amount to reopening issues based on hearsay.”

The Bench pointed out that Nathuram Godse was convicted on the basis of the evidence of eye-witnesses who were present at the prayer meeting. The meeting itself was attended by innumerable people. Each one of the eye-witnesses described how Godse moved forward and shot Gandhiji.

“We are, therefore, not prepared to accept the fourth bullet theory propounded by the petitioner. We consider the petitioner’s attempt to reopen this controversy as an exercise in futility” the Bench added.

On the submission of the petitioner that Shri Savarkar has been held guilty for the murder of Gandhiji, the Bench said, “it is misplaced. We are, however, not inclined to enter into the correctness or fairness of the findings in this report. That would be another exercise in futility and would none the less pan new fires of controversy. This Court must at all cost be vary of such contentious issues and must not allow its jurisdiction to be invoked for such purposes.”