Mumbai, May 31 (UNI) A Pune court on Saturday dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s application seeking details of the maternal lineage of Satyaki Savarkar, the grand-nephew of Hindutva icon VD Savarkar, in connection with a defamation case filed against the senior Congress leader.
Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Amol Shinde ruled that the matter at hand concerns Rahul Gandhi’s alleged defamatory remarks made during a speech in London, not the family tree of Satyaki Savarkar’s mother, the late Himani Ashok Savarkar.
The court found no merit in Gandhi’s request, stating that the complainant’s maternal ancestry was irrelevant to the proceedings and that no further investigation was warranted.
Advocate Milind Pawar, appearing for the Congress leader, had argued that the complainant’s maternal lineage was necessary for the defence, as only paternal details had been provided. The court, however, rejected this argument outright.
In a related development, the court also turned down Satyaki Savarkar’s plea to cancel Gandhi’s bail, noting that the grounds cited were insufficient. The judge observed that Gandhi had been granted bail with a permanent exemption from personal appearance and found no evidence that he was deliberately delaying the proceedings.
Satyaki Savarkar’s defamation complaint stems from Gandhi’s March 2023 speech in London, where the Congress leader allegedly claimed that VD Savarkar had written about beating up a Muslim man and feeling happy about it. The complainant has denied such claims, describing Gandhi’s remarks as “fictitious, false, and malicious".
UNI AAA SP RN