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CD found blank during Rahul Gandhi's Savarkar defamation case, request to play YouTube video denied
The case pertains to Rahul Gandhi's alleged 2023 defamatory speech about Hindu ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Magistrate Amol Shinde is hearing the case.
While hearing a defamation case against the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, a Pune court rejected a request to play a YouTube video after a CD, which was submitted as the main evidence and had been played earlier before a different judge as per the complainant, was found to be blank.
The case pertains to Rahul Gandhi's alleged 2023 defamatory speech about Hindu ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Amol Shinde is hearing the case against the Congress leader after a complaint was filed by Satyaki Savarkar, who is Savarkar’s grand-nephew.
‘Blank CD’ as evidence
On November 14, during Satyaki's examination-in-chief, which is the first round of questioning by the complainant or prosecution, the CD containing the video of the alleged defamatory speech made by Rahul Gandhi in London in 2023 could not be played after it was found to have no data.
On Thursday, Satyaki requested to run an additional CD provided to the court. However, this request was rejected as the court said that there was no such CD on record.
Notably, Advocate Sangram Kolhatkar, the lawyer representing Satyaki, claimed that when the case was registered in 2023 in the court, the other judge, before whom the case was being heard then, saw that the video in the CD was playing when it was submitted as evidence containing the alleged video along with the URL of the YouTube channel, according to a report by PTI.
“When the case was registered in 2023 in the court, we had submitted the original CD containing the alleged video along with the URL of the YouTube channel. The other judge, in whose court the case was being heard then, saw that the video in the CD was indeed playing. Now, the CD shows no data," he said.
Request to play YouTube video denied
The special court for cases against MPs and MLAs also dismissed Satyaki’s application to play the YouTube video of the alleged speech after the CD was found to be blank.
When his advocate Kolhatkar presented Satyaki’s request to play the original link of the YouTube video, Gandhi’s lawyer Milind Pawar opposed it.
The court, in its order on the same day, said the complainant had filed a certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act for the CD, but that certificate could not be applied to the YouTube URL.
Magistrate Amol Shinde said that the URL was not backed by a certificate under Section 65B, which is why it could not be accepted as evidence.
With inputs from agencies
