NEW DELHI: Pankaj Phadnis, who has sought reopening of the probe into the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, on Monday told the Supreme Court that he has accessed documents that show a larger conspiracy behind the murder. Phadnis, a trustee of charitable trust Abhinav Bharat, told the bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao that he had obtained documents, which the Indian government had banned, from the Library of Congress in New York and sought permission to file them.
The bench asked him to file an application before the court giving details of the documents he wanted to file and slated the hearing for March 6. The court was hearing the plea, which seeks reopening of the investigation on several grounds, claiming it was one of the biggest cover-ups in history. The bench had earlier also made it clear that it would go only by law and not the stature of the person involved in the case.
Senior advocate Amarendra Sharan, appointed amicus curiae to assist the court in the case, had said that there was no need to re-investigate it as the conspiracy behind the murder and the identity of assailant Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who had fired the shots, had been duly established. Gandhi was shot dead at point blank range in New Delhi on January 30, 1948, by Godse, a right-wing advocate of Hindu nationalism.