Overview
- Satyaki Savarkar, testifying during cross-examination, acknowledged in court on Monday that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar filed ten clemency or mercy petitions with the British while jailed in the Andamans.
- He said official government archives hold the petitions and the British rejected all of them because they feared Savarkar would return to revolutionary activity if released.
- Satyaki told the judge that the language of the petitions followed prison and administrative protocol and did not explicitly express loyalty to the colonial government.
- Court records show competing views remain because some colonial officials described the wording as deceptive and other prominent revolutionaries of the period declined to file petitions, a contrast raised in cross-examination.
- The testimony strengthens the trial record in the defamation case brought by Satyaki against Rahul Gandhi and the next hearing is set for July 1, when cross-examination will resume.