There is no evidence to prove that Mahatma Gandhi was killed by anybody other than Nathuram Godse, senior lawyer Amrendra Sharan told the Supreme Court on Monday, according to The Times of India.
The court had appointed Sharan the amicus curiae in the case in October and asked him to go through all documents related to Gandhi’s assassination. The move came after a Mumbai-based trustee of Hindu group Abhinav Bharat, Pankaj Phadnis, filed a Public Interest Litigation asking for the case to be reopened. Phadnis claimed the investigation into Gandhi’s assassination was “one of the biggest cover-ups in history”.
Phadnis’ plea claimed that Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were not the only ones who shot Gandhi. He said four shots were fired, and that it was the fourth bullet a mysterious person fired that killed Gandhi.
In his report submitted to Supreme Court Justice SA Bobde on Monday, Sharan said there was no evidence to prove the four-bullet theory.
“The bullets that pierced Gandhi’s body, the pistol from which it was fired, the assailant who fired the bullets, and the conspiracy and ideology that led to Gandhi’s assassination have all been duly identified,” Sharan’s report said, according to News18.
“No material has come to light to throw any doubt,” the report said. “There is no need either of a re-investigation or to constitute a fresh fact-finding commission with respect to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination case.”
Sharan said he had gone through 4,000 pages of trial court records and the report the Jeevan Lal Kapur Inquiry Commission filed in 1969. He told the Supreme Court all claims about the involvement of some foreign intelligence agency were also baseless, The Times of India reported.
In his petition filed in October, Phadnis also said, “The blame on Marathi people in general, and Veer Savarkar in particular, for being the cause of the death of Mahatma Gandhi has no basis in law and facts.” He asserted that there was a “compelling need to uncover the larger conspiracy” by setting up a new inquiry panel.
The court told Phadnis at the time that it did not find any material to reopen the case. But it added that their observations will not be binding on the amicus curiae, who will make an impartial assessment.
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