Nathuram Godse alone involved in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, SC told

There is no evidence to prove that Mahatma Gandhi was killed by any person other than Nathuram Vinayak Godse, senior lawyer Amrendra Sharan stated in the Supreme Court on Monday. Sharan, a senior lawyer, had been asked by the apex court to examine all documents concerning Gandhi’s assassination.

On October 6 last year, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking another investigation into Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. The petition was filed by Mumbai-based Dr Pankaj Phadnis, a trustee of right-wing outfit Abhinav Bharat. Dr Phadnis, at the time of demanding a probe, had billed the investigation into Gandhi’s murder as one of the biggest cover-ups in history.

The petition claiming a second assassin had fired the “fourth bullet” was heard by a bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao. After a brief hearing, the court had appointed senior advocate and former additional solicitor general Amarendra Sharan as amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter.

Even though the court will take a final stand on January 12, it is being anticipated that there may be no re-investigation into the case.

Assisted by advocates Sanchit Guru and Samarth Khanna, Sharan examined 4,000 pages of trial court documents and the Jeevan Lal Kapur Inquiry Commission report of 1969 before telling the court that he found no evidence about a second person firing a fourth bullet. He told the apex court that during scrutiny of all the documents, he found “no ground to re-open the assassination case”.

He told the Supreme Court all claims about the involvement of some foreign intelligence agency were also baseless and not substantiated by any evidence, The Times of India reported. Sharan in his report said, "The bullets which pierced Mahatma Gandhi's body, the pistol from which it was fired, the assailant who fired the said bullets, the conspiracy which led to the assassination and the ideology which led to the said assassination have all been duly identified. No substantive material has come to light to throw any doubt on any of the above requiring either a re-investigation of the Mahatma Gandhi murder case or, to constitute a fresh fact finding commission with respect to the same".

In his report submitted to Supreme Court Justice SA Bobde, Sharan said there was no evidence to prove the four-bullet theory.

In his petition, Phadnis had also stated that the blame on Marathi people in general, and Veer Savarkar in particular, for being the cause of the death of Mahatma Gandhi lacked basis in law and facts. He had asserted that there was a “compelling need to uncover the larger conspiracy” by setting up a new inquiry panel.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse—a right wing advocate of Hindu nationalism and a member of the Hindu Mahasabha—in the compound of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti) in New Delhi on January 30, 1948.