Close to 70 years after the assassination of ‘Bapuji’ Mahatma Gandhi, the ‘Father of the Nation’, the Supreme Court of India has appointed lawyer Amarendra Saran as amicus curiae (advisor), acting on a petition filed by an individual who claimed that Gandhiji was actually killed not by his assassin Nathuram Godse’s three bullets but by a fourth bulled fired from close quarters by a ‘mysterious person’.

A Bench comprising Justice L. Nageswara and Justice S.A. Babode was initially apprehensive in entertaining the petition filed by Pankaj Phadnis of ‘Abhinav Bharat’.  “A fresh probe in the 7-decade long case won’t help achieve anything new,” it first said but changed its mind by asking Saran to ‘assist’ in deciding the case after petitioner said he possessed documentary evidence to prove Bapu’s killer was ‘never caught’.

Phadnis, who knocked the apex Court’s doors after the Bombay High Court had turned down his plea, termed the investigation into Gandhiji’s assassination as the ‘biggest cover-up’ operation in independent India.  “Martahis are blamed for no reason for many years now for Bapu’s demise; the need to constitute a Commission on Inquiry to thoroughly investigate the case has never been felt more,” he told the Court.

“The ‘origin’ of the fourth bullet which actually killed Bapuji still remains a mystery,” he said.  When the Bench asked him if the ‘killer’ was still alive, Phadnis said that though the person himself had died, the organization which prompted him to kill Bapuji was still ‘alive’ and needed to be exposed.