Bombay High Court Moves Defamation Cases Against Author Hamid Dabholkar to Maharashtra

Court Decision on Defamation Suits

The Bombay High Court has decided to relocate the defamation lawsuits initiated by the Hindutva group Sanatan Sanstha against author Hamid Dabholkar, son of the late activist Narendra Dabholkar, and others from Goa to Kolhapur in Maharashtra. This decision was reported on Friday.

The court issued this ruling on Wednesday, noting that the concerns raised by the defendants regarding potential threats to their lives were deemed 'reasonable and genuine.'

Sanatan Sanstha had lodged five defamation suits against Hamid Dabholkar and journalist Nikhil Wagle, among others, between 2017 and 2018, accusing them of implicating the organization in the murders of Narendra Dabholkar and CPI leader Govind Pansare.

Narendra Dabholkar, a rationalist and founder of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, was assassinated in Pune in August 2013.

Govind Pansare was shot by two unidentified assailants while returning home from a morning walk in Kolhapur in February 2015 and succumbed to his injuries four days later.

In 2021, Hamid Dabholkar and Wagle petitioned the Bombay High Court to transfer the ongoing suits from Goa’s Ponda to any court in Maharashtra, citing safety concerns due to the trial court's proximity to Sanatan Sanstha's headquarters.

Justice NJ Jamadar of the High Court remarked that the apprehensions expressed by the applicants were not unreasonable, emphasizing that the core issue was not the Sanstha's actual involvement but the circumstances causing fear for the applicants' safety.

The court concluded that moving the case to Maharashtra would not hinder the organization from presenting its case.

Sanatan Sanstha opposed the transfer, claiming the petitions lacked a reasonable basis for safety concerns. Advocate Rajendra Pai, representing the organization, described the defendants' claims of danger as 'vague and baseless.'

The murders of Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare were followed by the assassination of MM Kalburgi, an award-winning anti-superstition activist, in Karnataka in August 2015.

Investigators have linked these three cases, along with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017, to Hindutva groups.

In 2016, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Virendrasingh Tawade, a doctor associated with Sanatan Sanstha, alleging he masterminded the conspiracy to kill Dabholkar.

The CBI stated that Sanatan Sanstha opposed the efforts of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, which aims to combat superstition.

In 2018, two other Sanatan Sanstha members, Sharad Kalaskar and Sachin Andure, were arrested, followed by the arrests of Sanjeev Punalekar and Vikram Bhave in 2019.

In May 2024, a Pune court sentenced Andure and Kalaskar to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh, while acquitting Tawade, Bhave, and Punalekar after a nearly three-year trial.