A Public Interest Litigation has been filed in the Bombay High Court seeking revocation of a ban on the import of a book published over five decades ago in Portugal that alleged larger conspiracy behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
The PIL has been filed by city-based researcher Pankaj Phadnis, the trustee of right wing group Abhinav Bharat.
He urged the court to quash and set aside a notification dated December 29, 1979 issued by the then Union government banning import of the book ‘Who Killed Gandhi’, authored by Portugal- based writer Lourenco De Sadvandor.
The government, while banning the book, published in 1963, had claimed it was “poorly researched” and “inflammatory”, the PIL said.
The petition, however, claims that the ban was arbitrary, untenable and infringes on the fundamental right of speech and thought.
Mr. Phadnis had last year approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the government to re-investigate the assassination of Gandhi.
