PUNE: Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar's grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar has moved a local court seeking voice samples of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in connection with a defamation case against him over his comments about the late revolutionary.
Satyaki's lawyer, Sangram Kolhatkar, moved the application before Judicial Magistrate (First Class) (MP/MLA Special Court) A A Shinde on Tuesday.
He has produced evidence to prove the case beyond reasonable doubts, but "for the proper adjudication of certain electronic recordings, the voice samples of the accused (Rahul Gandhi) are an indispensable piece of evidence," the plea stated.
The court should direct the accused to provide his voice samples before the competent authority, Satyaki said, and also sought a direction to Forensic Science Laboratory authorities to conduct a scientific analysis and comparison of the collected samples with the recordings on the court record.
Satyaki Savarkar filed a complaint in 2023 before the magistrate alleging that Rahul Gandhi, currently Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, claimed in a speech in London that V D Savarkar 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.
V D Savarkar never wrote this, the complaint said.
Meanwhile, advocate Milind Pawar, representing Rahul Gandhi, began the cross-examination of Satyaki Savarkar on Tuesday.