“No. I do not support the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi,” the complainant answered under cross-examination in the Rahul Gandhi criminal defamation case, adding in his testimony that Savarkar Condemned Gandhi’s Murder too.
Pune: Being cross-examined on October 14, 2026 in the criminal defamation complaint he has filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Satyaki Savarkar, grandnephew of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, told the Special MP/MLA Court in Pune that Savarkar condemned the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi [Satyaki Savarkar v. Rahul Gandhi].
The complaint is pending before the Special MP/MLA Court in Pune, where the earlier cross-examination hearings were held before Special Judge Amol Shinde. Advocate Milind Pawar cross-examined the witness for Gandhi, and Advocate Sangram Kolhatkar appears for the complainant. The cross-examination will continue on October 28, 2026.
One question, one answer
The defence asked whether he supports the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and the witness said no.
“No. I do not support the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.”
Vinayak Savarkar too had condemned the killing, he went on to say. He accepted that Savarkar disagreed with some of Gandhi’s political views, but said Savarkar did not want to kill him. These are the witness’s statements in testimony, and the court will assess their weight at the appropriate stage.
The London speech and the complaint
Gandhi gave a speech at an Overseas Congress event in London on March 5, 2023, and the complaint is about that speech. The complainant alleges that Gandhi falsely claimed Vinayak Savarkar had written a book describing the beating of a Muslim man, that the statement was made knowingly and with intent to harm Savarkar’s reputation, and that its effects were felt in Pune. He seeks maximum punishment under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code and maximum compensation under Section 357 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
All of this is the complainant’s allegations, and it remains untested. The court has expressed no view on the merits, and Gandhi is presumed innocent unless and until the allegations are proved at trial.
The Pune court summoned Gandhi in November 2024. In earlier hearings the complainant’s counsel objected to certain lines of defence questioning as irrelevant, and the court said it would decide the objection at the final stage. A fresh objection was filed on October 14: the complainant says the cross-examination, which has run for over ten months, amounts to surveillance and is prolonging the trial. It has not yet been decided.
The 1964 felicitation and the Kapur Commission
Several events put to him by the defence, among them a 1964 felicitation of persons released after the assassination case and remarks attributed to G.V. Ketkar, were not known to him, the witness said. On the Kapur Commission, he said its report mentions Savarkar’s name, and the court recorded his statement that no commission is above the court and that the Kapur Commission is no exception. He also denied that his maternal grandparents had given interviews meant to create hatred between communities.
The history behind the questions
Vinayak Savarkar was one of the accused in the original trial over Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, in which the trial court cleared him for want of corroboration of an approver’s account. A one-man Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Jivanlal Kapur, a retired Supreme Court judge, was set up in 1966 and completed its report in 1969. At an earlier hearing on August 17, 2026, the same witness had testified that his maternal grandfather Gopal Godse was the brother of Nathuram Godse, who shot Gandhi in 1948.
The defence and the complainant draw different conclusions from this history, and the court is not deciding it. Its task in this complaint is to decide whether the statements attributed to Gandhi amount to defamation.
Two objections still to be ruled on
Both sides are testing the limits of cross-examination, and the case has become a long-running contest. The defence seeks to probe the complainant’s knowledge, family background and the historical record on which his claim of reputational harm rests, while the complainant says the questioning has strayed into irrelevance. The pace of the trial and the scope of the evidence it will consider will depend on how the court rules on the pending objections.
Case Title: Satyaki Savarkar v. Rahul Gandhi (criminal defamation complaint)
Court: Special MP/MLA Court, Pune
Date of hearing: October 14, 2026 (next hearing October 28, 2026)
Appearances: Advocate Milind Pawar for Rahul Gandhi; Advocate Sangram Kolhatkar for the complainant