The Bombay high court on Monday dismissed a public interest (PIL) litigation by a researcher and trustee of Abhinav Bharat, Mumbai, seeking the appointment of a commission of inquiry to probe afresh t
The Bombay high court on Monday dismissed a public interest (PIL) litigation by a researcher and trustee of Abhinav Bharat, Mumbai, seeking the appointment of a commission of inquiry to probe afresh the murder of Mahatma Gandhi in January 1948, and the ‘conspiracy behind it’.
A bench headed by Justice V.M. Kanade stated that the matter couldn’t be heard as the said matter had concluded long ago.
Pankaj Phadnis, who has spent almost two decades working on the matter, filed the PIL claiming that he had forensic evidence with him to back his claims of seeking a fresh probe into Gandhi’s killing.
The bench, however, stated that it was inclined to dismiss the petition. The bench said, “The writ jurisdiction of the high court cannot be exercised in a matter which was concluded long ago and that the judges would give a reasoned order later in order to dismiss the petition.”
Mr Phadnis further argued that the Supreme Court too was hearing a 150-year-old matter, which is pertaining to precious Kohinoor diamond, in the interest of the public.
On the same grounds, a PIL seeking new commission for probing Gandhi’s death should be heard by the high court, he said.
The petition filed by Mr Phadnis had claimed that the then J.L. Kapur Commission of Inquiry could not be relied upon because newspaper reports and photographs of January 31, 1948, were contradictory to the prosecution’s case.
Further, the petition stated that Gandhi had received three bullet injuries, while the police was able to recover the remaining four bullets.
Relying on news and photographs collected from media reports at the time, the PIL has alleged that Gandhi had received four bullet wounds on his person on January 30, 1948, when he was shot dead and a new commission of inquiry should conduct a probe to find who had fired the fourth shot and to establish whether there was any other assassin besides Nathuram Godse.
