A.G. Noorani’s article “ >How Savarkar escaped the gallows ” (Op-Ed, January 30, 2013) is a classic example of suppressio veri , suggestio falsi , and casts unwarranted aspersions on Savarkar. Noorani relies exclusively on the Kapur Commission for “corroborative” evidence implicating Savarkar in the conspiracy to murder the Mahatma, without noting that it had no power to adjudicate on an issue that had been already decided by the Special Court, in this case the acquittal of Savarkar in the Gandhi murder case. Like other inquiry commissions, it had authority merely to collect evidence. If the government was convinced of Savarkar’s complicity, it could have gone into appeal against his acquittal to a higher court. That it did not do so is proof enough that the prosecution had no leg to stand on. The commission was a one-man show; to preclude all possibility of bias there should have been a panel of judges. But the Kapur Commission was not set up to deliver unbiased justice. Set up nine months after Savarkar’s death, it was biased against him and in favour of the Government of India.
Anurupa Cinar,
Massachusetts
