Sixty-nine years after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed a petition that sought to reopen the case contenting that a person other than Nathu Ram Godse and Nrayan Apte may also have been involved in the killing of Bapu.
Initially reluctant to reopen the case, which was decided way back in 1949, the court went on to appoint senior advocate Amarendra Sharan as amicus curaie to assist petitioner Pankaj Kumudchandra Phadnis. The petitioner informed the court that documents with him suggested there was another killer, besides Godse and Apte, who were hanged for killing the Mahatma. Earlier, the Bombay High Court rejected Phadnis’ petition that led him to file an appeal in the SC.
The Bench of Justices Sharad Arvind Bobde and l Nageswara Rao was initially not impressed to issue notice on the petition. It said, “Why should we reopen this case nowIJ We can give you as much time you want but you must satisfy us why we should reopen a finding that has been affirmed…nothing can be done now in law.”
The Bench also wondered that even if a case is made out, no witnesses would be alive to testify what happened on the fateful day of January 30, 1948 when Gandhiji was shot dead.
The Court apprised the petitioner of the law on limitation that prevented it from taking up a matter after almost seven decades. The Mumbai-based petitioner is a researcher and a trustee of an organisation called Abhinav Bharat.
Claiming that that he had received certain crucial documents relating to the case, he said his appeal was pending before the National Archives and Research Administration, Maryland in the US for de-classifying certain other sensitive documents connected with the assassination.
The petitioner further pointed out that the appeal arising against the death sentence awarded to Godse and Apte by the East Punjab High Court never got a hearing from the Supreme Court. In 1949, the family members of the death convicts approached the Privy Council in Britain , which said the Supreme Court of India would have jurisdiction to hear the case after it would come into existence in January 1950.
Phadnis claimed that the case was riddled with contradictions and deserved a hearing in order to rule out possibility that the Father of the Nation could have been killed by someone else.
The Bench remarked, “We want to go by the law and not by political passion…You say there was someone else, a third person who killed him (Gandhi). Is that person alive today to face the trial.”
To this, Phadnis replied that the assassination could have been the handiwork of an organised body. “We cannot convict an organisation,” the Bench said, and turned to Sharan who was sitting inside the Court. The Bench posted the matter for hearing on October 30, while asking the amicus curiae to examine whether the petition had any merits.