In the ongoing Savarkar defamation case, the court has rejected Satyaki Savarkar’s request to play a YouTube video of Rahul Gandhi’s alleged 2023 speech, citing Section 65-B compliance and missing digital evidence.
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NEW DELHI: A special court for cases against MPs and MLAs has rejected Satyaki Savarkar’s request to play a YouTube video of Rahul Gandhi’s alleged 2023 speech in London, which he claimed defamed freedom fighter and Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar.
Satyaki Savarkar, the grand-nephew of V D Savarkar, had also sought to submit an additional CD containing the video as evidence. However, the court stated that no such CD was on record, thereby dismissing the application.
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Background
The complaint relates to a speech made by Rahul Gandhi in London in 2023, which Satyaki Savarkar alleges contained false and defamatory statements about V D Savarkar. The video was initially submitted to the court on a CD, along with the YouTube URL of the channel hosting the speech.
During the examination-in-chief of Satyaki Savarkar on November 14, the CD containing the video could not run as it was found to be blank.
Advocate Sangram Kolhatkar, representing Satyaki Savarkar, requested the court to play the original YouTube link. However, Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer, Advocate Milind Pawar, opposed this request.
Legal Reasoning
The court clarified that while the CD submitted initially had a certificate under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act, which validates electronic evidence, the YouTube URL or web link itself could not be admitted as evidence without a proper 65-B certificate.
Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Amol Shinde stated:
“The certificate filed with respect to the CD cannot be used for the YouTube URL. The URL or web link is not supported by a certificate as per Section 65-B, and hence it cannot be admitted as evidence.”
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On November 27, Satyaki Savarkar sought permission to play an additional CD, which he claimed had been provided to the court. The court, however, found that no such CD was present in the record, leading to the rejection of the request.
Advocate Kolhatkar stated that he has requested a judicial inquiry into the blank CD and the missing additional CD. He added:
“When the case was registered in 2023, the original CD containing the video was submitted along with the YouTube URL. The other judge, in whose court the case was being heard then, saw that the video was indeed playing. Now, the CD shows no data.”
Satyaki Savarkar alleged that Rahul Gandhi, in his London speech, claimed that V D Savarkar had written in a book that:
- He and five to six friends once beat up a Muslim man.
- V D Savarkar felt happy about the incident.
The complaint asserts that no such incident ever took place, and that V D Savarkar never wrote such statements anywhere.
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