Lets Kill Gandhi

by Gandhi, Tushar A.

  'He is found "not guilty" of the remaining offences as specified in the charge, and is acquitted thereunder.'

  Dattatreya S. Parchure

  'He is found "guilty" under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 302 of the Code read with Section 302 of the Code and u/s 109 of the Indian Penal code read with Section 302 of the Code, is convicted thereunder and is sentenced to transportation for life u/s 109 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 302 of the Code.

  'He is found "not guilty" of the remaining offences as specified in the charge, and is acquitted thereunder.

  Vinayak D. Savarkar

  'He is found "not guilty" of the offences as specified in the charge, and is acquitted thereunder. He is in custody and be released forthwith unless required otherwise.

  'Digambar R. Badge has fulfilled the condition of his pardon, and be released from custody forthwith unless required otherwise.

  'Nathuram V. Godse, Narayan D. Apte, Vishnu R. Karkare, Madanlal K. Pahwa, Shankar Kistayya, Gopal V.Godse. and Dattraya S. Parachure are informed that, if they want to appeal from this order they should do so within fifteen days from today. Copies of the Judgement are ready and may be had on application just now.

  'I may bring to the notice of the Central Government the slackness of the police in the investigation of the case during the period between 20-1-1948 and 30-1-1948. The Delhi Police had obtained a detailed statement from Madanlal K. Pahwa soon after his arrest on 20-1-1948. The Bombay Police had also been reported the statement of Dr. J.C. Jain that he had made to the Hon'ble Morarji Desai on 21-1-1948. The Delhi Police and the Bombay Police had contacted each other soon after these two statements had been made. Yet the Police miserably failed to drive any advantage from these two statements. Had the slightest keenness been shown in the investigation of the case at that stage the tragedy probably could have been averted.

  'My thanks are due to the counsel for the prosecution as well as the counsel for the defence for the cooperation they showed throughout with the court. Had it not been for their absolute cooperation the case of the nature could not have been disposed of in this time.

  'My thanks are also due to the staff of the Court. They came from different districts in the United Provinces, and worked splendidly throughout their stay at Delhi.

  'All arms, ammunition and explosives and the articles connected therewith brought on the record of the case are confiscated to the Crown u/s 527 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Exs 14, 28, 29 and 30 are the shells of the hand-grenades that had been distributed at the Marina Hotel on 20-1-1948. Ex. 39 is the automatic-pistol with which Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead on 30-1-1948. Exs 9, 10, and 55 are the empty cartridge-case for the cartridges that had been fired at Mahatma Gandhi on 30-1-1948. Exs. 11 and 12 are the spent bullets that had passed right through the body of Mahatma Gandhi on 30-1-1948. No action in regard thereto be taken without first consulting the Central Government. They may perhaps be required for the National Museum.'

  (sd) ATMACHARAN,

  I.C.S.,

  Judge, Special Court

  Red Fort, Delhi

  February 10, 1948

  ———————————————

  * All bracketed italics by the author.

  * There is a discrepancy in the ages of the accused in the book I referred to for the court proceedings. My assumption is that these have either cropped up as printer's devils or because of the many varied sources from where all the information, for this otherwise very detailed book, have been gathered. My source for all the details about the Gandhi murder trial is based largely on Gandhi Hatyakand in Hindi; Gandhi Murder Trial in English published by Dewan Ram Prakash for Tagore Memorial Publications, New Delhi in March 1949; second edition, March 1949, printed at the Hind Union Press, New Delhi; and a book written by Justice Khosla, The Murder of a Mahatma and Other Cases of the Punjab High Court, who heard the appeal of the accused along with two other judges and who was a witness to the execution of Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte.

  * Gandhi Murder Trial does not mention Pandit Thakurdas in the prosecution team but instead names J.C. Shah. It also lists Vyavharkar as M.G. instead of N.G. as in Gandhi Hatyakand.

  * It should have been Kasar, Appa Kasar, a handyman who worked for VD. Savarkar.

  * In a previous instance, when the administrator of the Telephone Revenue Department of New Delhi, RR. Kailash, was being cross-examined it has been mentioned that the Bombay number was listed in the name of the Chief Defence Counsel Bhopatkar, and another number 60210 has been mentioned as appearing on the bill raised on the Hindu Mahasabha. These confusing and conflicting testimonies were never cleared and ended up discrediting vital evidence that linked Savarkar to the case.

  * According to Manohar Mulgaonkar, in his book The Men Who Killed Gandhi, Badge was a cruel and miserly employer, who used to torture and ill-treat Kistayya.

  **This should be the prosecution counsel, since Badge did not have a counsel because he was given a pardon.

  * In his book The Men Who Killed Gandhi Manohar Malgaonkar writes that Shankar had wandered around bewildered after the arrest of his master, Badge. He finally landed up at Dixit Maharaj's home in Bhuleshwar, and was told to go to the CID office. Shankar was found wandering around in the office and when questioned, revealed his identity. According to Malgaonkar, Nagarvala greeted Shankar in his office with a resounding slap.

  * This has to be a mistake; the orders were given in Bombay, on 21 January. Nagarvala and the other police officials were not blessed with the gift of clairvoyance, as their bungling of the bomb explosion case indicates that they lacked even foresight! And according to police records Nagarvala was very much in Bombay on 21 January.

  * This is surprising because Desai was leaving for Ahmedabad that night. The Madras Mail does not go to Ahmedabad, and it departs from Victoria Terminus, now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Either it is a printer's devil in the Hindi book Gandhi Hatyakand or it is a mistake made by Nagarvala in histestimony.

  ** Testifying before the Kapur Commission, Nagarvala claimed that he had inquired about Karkare's whereabouts by contacting his brother in Ahmednagar, since he could not contact the DSP.

  † This again is a puzzling statement from Nagarvala. At the beginning of his testimony Nagarvala has stated that when he instructed the Ahmednagar police to arrest Karkare, he had also inquired if they had already arrested him on the basis of previous orders issued for the arrest of Karkare under the Bombay Security Ordinance. If this was the case, his department must have been aware of the antecedents of Vishnu Ramchandra Karkare.

  * These are the two policies on which Nathuram nominated the wives of Apte and Gopal Godse as beneficiaries. These policies had been accepted as evidence in the court's records.

  * A printer's devil has caused this glaring error in the narrative in Gandhi Hatyakand, Sadashiv Gopal Parchure and Gopal Vinayak Godse have merged to become Sadashiv Gopal Godse.

  * Dange seems to have forgotten that Badge has mentioned in his testimony that he had asked his wife to bring his account books and all the documents and correspondence.

  * Dange seems to have sleep-walked through the trial. The prosecution never stated that Karkare, Gopal Godse and Shankar were to attack Gandhi from Choturam's Room. The plan was that after Madanlal exploded that gun cotton bomb, Karkare and Shankar would throw hand grenades at Gandhi from the front while Badge, who would have gained entry into Choturam's room, would throw a hand grenade at Gandhi through the ventilator and fire on him through the ventilator grill.

  * Another far-fetched claim. Badge took the bag containing the weapons to Dixit Maharaj's home because, according to his testimony, Apte and Godse were not able to store the weapons at Savarkar Sadan.

  * Here Das is being clever, as the telegram was sent by Karkare in an effort to re-establish contact with his partners in crime. If he had known about Apte's presence in Bombay he would not have sent a telegram to Poona.

  * Bannerjee, alt
hough Madanlal's counsel, seemed to be under the assumption that he was the chief defence counsel and kept making comments regarding the case against many of the other accused. This was a trick employed by the defence to obfuscate and prolong the proceedings in an attempt to complicate and compromise the trial.

  ** Bannerjee seems to be suffering from amnesia here. While testifying in court, apart from reading out Parchure's confessional statement, Magistrate R.B. Atal, P.W. 56, had also described in detail the entire process employed to record the statement, the events in detail about the approach made to him by the police, the description of the fort and the barracks as well as the cell in which Parchure was held.

  † Bannerjee conveniently forgets that Madanlal had been ticked off by the leaders of the gang that morning for being lazy and late in getting up. It is very natural that Madanlal was sulking as he had been reprimanded.

  * Bannerjee conveniently forgets his earlier argument that Hindu Mahasabha Bhavan was a public place; it is only natural that the gang members wanted the privacy of the hotel room to prepare explosives, clean and repair weapons and do the final planning in the privacy of a hotel room.

  * Inamdar is wrong in saying that till 16 February Apte and Karkare were not arrested. The two were arrested on 14 February.

  13

  * * *

  APPEALS AND EXECUTION

  'Assaults have been made on my life in the past, but God has spared me till now, and the assailants have repented for their action. But if someone were to shoot me in the belief that he was getting rid of a rascal, he would kill not the real Gandhi, but the one that appeared to him a rascal.'

  — MAHATMA GANDHI

  All those convicted in the Gandhi murder trial appealed to the Punjab high court within four days of their sentencing by the special court. The chief justice of Punjab constituted a three judge bench to hear the appeal of the accused in the trial, which comprised Mr. Justice A.N. Bhandari, Mr. Justice Achchruram and Mr. Justice G.D. Khosla.

  In describing the appeal in the high court, material from the book written by Justice G.D. Khosla, The Murder of the Mahatma, and in particular the chapter—'Crimes of Nathuram'—have been extensively used. Describing the preparation for the trial Justice Khosla writes: 'An appeal in a murder case is, according to High Court Rules and Orders, heard by a Division Bench consisting of two judges, but owing to the unique position which the deceased had occupied, the complexity and volume of the evidence which would have to be considered and appraised and the unprecedented interest aroused by the case, the Chief Justice decided to constitute a bench of three judges to hear the appeal by Godse and his accomplices. The judges were Mr. Justice A.N. Bhandari, Mr. Justice Achchruram and myself. We decided that as a special measure we should resume the old practice of wearing wigs, and that on our entry into the courtroom we should, as in the olden days, be preceded by our liveried ushers carrying silver-mounted staffs.

  'The Punjab High Court was, at that time, located at Simla, where it had been hurriedly set up during the autumn of 1947, because at no other place was suitable accommodation available. The Government of India had placed at our disposal "Peterhoff", a large manorial building which was formerly the summer residence of the Viceroy. It was a picturesque house standing in pleasant surroundings and commanding a view of the distant hills with their snow-covered peaks. But it was scarcely suitable for a high court. The viceregal bedrooms, stripped of their opulent furnishings and silver-plated fittings, gave an appearance of mock austerity, but even the largest of them was not commodious enough for a court-room in which, besides the judge and his reader, half a dozen lawyers and their clerks spent several hours a day; and often the parties to the case under consideration also came to see how their lawyers were handling their misfortunes and hopes and how the judge was reacting to the pleas put forward on their behalf. There must be a table for the judge, another for his reader and stenographer, a separate table for the lawyers on which they can place their briefs and the law books they cite. And when a few book-shelves to hold law reports and other books of reference were placed along the walls, there was no room left for the public.

  'We had a constant feeling of being cramped, and there was nothing that we could do to improve matters. Chandigarh and the massive High Court building into which we moved in the beginning of 1955 was still no more than an idea. Fortunately the non-litigant public of Simla was incurious about High Court proceedings, and we seldom had any visitors. But the hearing of the appeal in the Gandhi murder case was expected to arouse widespread interest and bring large numbers of lawyers, pressmen and spectators to court each day, and there was not a single court-room which could accommodate even the persons actually engaged in dealing with the appeal.

  The ballroom on the ground floor was being used as a passage giving access to the court-rooms on the first floor. Constructed for vice-regal entertainment during the summer months when the seat of the Government of India used to move from Calcutta to Simla, the large hall was cold and draughty. However, with a few minor alterations and the addition of a dais at one end, it became an admirable court-room, and the generous teak wood staircase which came down to the specially constructed dais displayed a dignity worthy of the robed and bewigged judges who day after day for a period of six weeks marched down it, preceded by ushers resplendent in their scarlet and gold liveries and carrying tall silver-mounted staffs— symbols of the triple embodiment of law. Such splendour and glory had not been witnessed in the refugee High Court since it had been forced to abandon its old seat in Lahore. The staffs had been put away in a store-room because the narrow corridors between the bedrooms allowed no play for processional ritual, and even the wigs had ceased to be worn because many of the advocates had left them behind in Lahore in their stampede to safety; and at Simla they had made a formal request that the dress regulation be relaxed in this respect. Their re-appearance on the opening day of the appeal was, therefore, all the more impressive.

  The hearing began on 2 May 1949. It was a bright day with the gold of the sun lying in a thin layer on the lawns of "Peterhoff". There was a slight chill in the air, and the ballroom was warmed by a dozen or so electric fires. Policemen stood guard at the entrance, and admission to the courtroom was regulated by passes issued by the registrar. This was done partly for reasons of security, but chiefly to limit the number of persons who could be accommodated without taxing the patience of our staff or disturbing the proceedings. When we took our seats on the dais, I saw that the room was full to capacity. All the black-coated and gowned lawyers who were not engaged in arguing their cases before other judges had spread themselves over the privileged front rows in a large inky splash. Behind them sat the members of the gentry of Simla, who had succeeded in exercising a sufficient measure of their influence to secure passes. There were separate seats for pressmen and reporters, and to the right of the dais a score or so of chairs had been reserved for the V.I.P.s. These comprised the wives and daughters of hon'ble judges and high Government officials.

  'At a long table in front of the dais sat an impressive row of advocates representing the appellants and the King. There was Mr. Bannerjee, a senior advocate from Calcutta, for Apte and Madanlal Pahwa, Mr. Dange for Karkare, Mr. Avasthi of the Punjab High Court, engaged at public expense to represent Kistayya, who was too poor to pay counsel's fees, and Mr. Inamdar from Bombay [Inamdar, counsel for Parchure and Gopal Godse, was from Gwalior] for Parchure and Gopal Godse. Nathuram Godse had declined to be represented by a lawyer, and had made a prayer that he should be permitted to appear in person and argue his appeal himself. This prayer had been granted, and so he stood in a specially constructed dock. His small defiant figure with flashing eyes and close-cropped hair offered a remarkable and immediately noticeable contrast to the long row of placid and prosperous looking lawyers who represented his accomplices. The plea of poverty on which Godse had based his request to be present inperson was only an excuse, and the real reason behind the manoeuvre was a morbid desire to watch the
process of his disintegration at first hand and also to exhibit himself as a fearless patriot and a passionate protagonist of Hindu ideology. He had remained completely unrepentant of his atrocious crime, and whether out of a deep conviction in his beliefs or merely in order to make a last public apology, he had sought this opportunity of displaying his talents before he dissolved into oblivion.

  'On the right-hand end of the front row sat four lawyers who were appearing for the prosecution—Mr. Daphtary, Advocate-General of Bombay, Messrs. Petigara and Vyavaharkar, also from Bombay, and Mr. Kartar Singh Chawla of our own High Court'.

  There was a falling out between the three judges on the very first day of the hearing which is apparent from Khosla's book. Thus the decision to appoint a three judge bench proved futile. The cleft in the bench was so deep and wide that separate judgements were delivered in the appeal trial. The cause of the rift as described by Khosla: