An aspect that Justice Sahai had to deal with while evaluating depositions was the strong belief that many witnesses held about Gumnami Baba’s identity. – Raja Bose
Justice (retired) Vishnu Sahai, who submitted his report on the identity of Gumnami Baba, the Faizabad ascetic who was believed by many to be Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, to UP Governor Ram Naik on [Sept 19th], told TOI that a “majority of witnesses who deposed before the commission said that Gumnami Baba was Netaji.“
Justice Sahai commission was instituted in June last year by the then Samajwadi Party government, following an Allahabad high court directive. The direction came following a PIL where the petitioner claimed that the reclusive Gumnami Baba was Subhash Chandra Bose.
“The primary source of evidence for the commission were the witnesses who either appeared before me in person or whose affidavits were treated by me as statements. A majority of the witnesses said Gumnami Baba was Netaji or may have been Netaji. Some witnesses also said he was not,“ Justice Sahai, who also headed the inquiry into Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, told TOI in an exclusive interview a day after he submitted his 347-page report.
Justice Sahai, who did not reveal the findings of the report, said that the passage of time between Gumnami Baba’s death and the commission hearing witnesses posed a big challenge.
“Gumnami Baba died in 1985 and witnesses gave their statements in 2016 and 2017, a time lag of over three decades. It is natural that with passage of time, their memory dimmed and, at times, they were prone to imagine facts and events, about which they deposed,“ said Justice Sahai.
Another aspect that he had to deal with while evaluating depositions was the strong belief that many witnesses held about Gumnami Baba’s identity.
“The mandate of the commission was to find out the identity of Gumnami Baba. Majority of the witnesses began with the premise that Gumnami Baba was indeed Netaji. Their approach was that, in case the commission did not agree with their premise, only then should it try to find out the identity of Gumnami Baba. In other words, they put the cart before the horse,“ he said. – The Economic Times, 22 September 2017
» Raja Bose is The Times of India resident editor in Chandigarh.
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