The Supreme Court on Friday made senior lawyer Amrender Sharan the amicus curiae to examine whether there was any need to reopen the investigation into Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, PTI reported. The bench made the appointment after hearing a plea filed by Mumbai-based Dr Pankaj Phadnis, who claimed that the investigation was “one of the biggest cover-ups in history”.
Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao said there was nothing to be done in the case that had already been decided. “We appreciate your passion for the cause, but we are not inclined to interfere,” the bench said, according to NDTV.
When the petitioner suggested that the assassination may have been carried out by an organised body, the judges said: “You say that there was someone else, a third person, who killed him. Is that person alive today to face the trial...We cannot convict an organisation.”
The court further said that even though it did not find any material to reopen the case, their observations were not binding on the amicus curiae, who will make an impartial assessment. The court has scheduled the next hearing in the matter for October 30.
The petitioner has challenged the Bombay High Court’s ruling from June 2016, which had dismissed his plea on grounds that a competent court had recorded the findings in the case. Phadnis has questioned the “three bullet theory” that various courts relied on to uphold the conviction of Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte, the assassins behind Gandhi’s murder.
He also questioned the benefit of doubt given to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar because of lack of evidence.
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