Can't compel Rahul Gandhi to produce book he cited: Pune court in Savarkar 'Defamation' case

Mumbai: A court in Pune on Thursday said it cannot direct Rahul Gandhi to prematurely produce ‘the incriminating documents’.

The court made the opinion while rejecting the petition filed by the grandnephew of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in a defamation case involving Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi, The Wire reported.

The petitioner sought access to the `book’ that Rahul Gandhi cited while allegedly making defamatory remarks against Savarkar.

Judge Amol Shinde of the special court for MPs and MLAs said that Gandhi cannot be compelled to produce the book.

The court in its order said that the accused might produce relevant documents while presenting defense evidence, but compelling the accused to produce evidence prematurely would ‘amount to violation of his fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India, which protects against self-incrimination.’

Satyaki Savarkar earlier in a plea claimed that the book that Gandhi referred to did not exist and sought the court to direct him to produce if the book existed.

Responding to it the court said: ‘As per Article 20(3)…’No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Therefore, this Court is of the opinion that an order cannot be passed directing the accused to file the incriminating documents.’

Gandhi in a speech in London in March 2023 claimed V.D. Savarkar to have had written in a ‘book’ that “he and five to six of his friends once beat up a Muslim man, and he (Savarkar) felt happy”, Satyaki Savarkar said in the complaint.

Satyaki Savarkar claimed that neither the incident had taken place nor that Savarkar had written about it.