The Bombay High Court has transferred the defamation suits filed by Hindutva organisation Sanatan Sanstha against author Hamid Dabholkar, who is the son of late activist Narendra Dabholkar, and others from Goa to Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, reported India Today on Friday.

The court passed the order on Wednesday after observing that the defendant’s apprehensions about threats to their life were “reasonable and genuine”, according to The Indian Express.

Sanatan Sanstha had filed five defamation suits against Hamid Dabholkar and journalist Nikhil Wagle, among others, between 2017 and 2018 for allegedly blaming the organisation for the murder of Narendra Dabholkar and Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare.

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

Pansare was shot by two unidentified gunmen on his way home from a morning walk in Kolhapur in February 2015. He died four days later.

In 2021, Hamid Dabholkar and Wagle moved the Bombay High Court seeking the transfer of the suits, pending before the civil judge, senior division, in Goa’s Ponda, to any court in Maharashtra, reported The Times of India.

Citing the proximity of the trial court to the Sanatan Sanstha’s headquarters in Goa, they said that they might “meet the same fate” as Narendra Dabholkar if they participate in the proceedings.

On Wednesday, Justice NJ Jamadar of the High Court stated that “in the totality of the circumstances, the apprehension cannot be said to be unreasonable”, reported The Indian Express.

He added: “The real question is not whether the Sanstha was actually involved in the activities, but whether there are circumstances which give rise to the apprehension in the mind of the applicants about their safety.”

The court held that transferring the case to Maharashtra would not obstruct the organisation from proving its case.

Sanatan Sanstha had opposed the petitions, arguing that they were “devoid of reasonable apprehension of safety”.

Advocate Rajendra Pai, appearing for the organisation, told the court that the claim of danger to the defendants’ lives was “vague and baseless”.

Narendra Dabholkar and Pansare’s murders were followed by the killing of MM Kalburgi, a Kendriya Sahitya Akademi awardee and anti-superstition activist, at Karnataka’s Dharwad district in August 2015.

Investigating agencies have said the three cases, and the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017, were linked and Hindutva groups were behind them.

In 2016, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Virendrasingh Tawade, a doctor linked to Sanatan Sanstha. The agency alleged that Tawade was the mastermind of the conspiracy to murder Dabholkar.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Sanatan Sanstha was opposed to the work carried out by the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an organisation working to fight superstition.

In 2018, two other members of Sanatan Sanstha, Sharad Kalaskar and Sachin Andure, were arrested. The Central Bureau of Investigation also arrested Sanjeev Punalekar and Vikram Bhave, who were also linked to the group, in 2019.

In May 2024, a Pune court convicted Andure and Kalaskar, sentencing them to life imprisonment along with a penalty of Rs 5 lakh. It acquitted Tawade, Bhave and Punalekar.

The judgement was pronounced after a trial that lasted nearly three years.