Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar was released from prison because of political pressure and not due to the mercy petitions he wrote to the British colonial administration, his grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar claimed before a Pune court on Monday, reported Bar and Bench.

Satyaki Savarkar made the statement during his cross-examination before Special Judge Amol Shinde in a criminal defamation trial against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The case stems from a complaint filed by Satyaki Savarkar in April 2023 against Gandhi, accusing him of making false and malicious remarks about the Hindutva ideologue during an event in London in March 2023.

On Wednesday, he told the court that VD Savarkar was released from jail due to “efforts made in National Assembly in 1937”, reported Bar and Bench.

VD Savarkar was lodged at the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar islands from 1911 from 1921. He was then transferred to the Ratnagiri jail in present-day Maharashtra, from where he was granted conditional release in 1924. From 1924 to 1937, Savarkar was confined to the Ratnagiri district and was barred from taking part in politics.

During the cross-examination on Monday, Satyaki Savarar also claimed that the Kakinada session of the Indian National Congress in 1923 had passed a resolution to release VD Savarkar. “Because popularity of Savarkar was increasing day by day and public pressure was increasing for his release,” the court recorded him as saying, according to Bar and Bench.

He further said that similar efforts could have also saved freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru from being executed.

On the mercy petitions, Satyaki Savarkar said he could not confirm whether VD Savarkar had requested that he be released from jail on the condition that he would not participate in any political movement.

The cross-examination will continue on July 7.

During the previous hearing on June 15, Satyaki Savarkar had told the court that VD Savarkar filed 10 mercy petitions before the British colonial administration.

However, he rejected the suggestion that filing clemency petitions was inconsistent with the Hindutva ideologue’s title of “veer”, or heroic.

He further stated that clemency petitions were part of “a standard procedure under the British government” and that many prisoners used the mechanism to seek remission or reduction of sentences.

He acknowledged, however, that several other freedom fighters of the period, including Rajguru, Singh, Batukeshwar Dutt and Ashfaqulla Khan, did not submit clemency petitions.

Satyaki Savarkar had told the court that the British government rejected all of Savarkar’s petitions and feared that he would rejoin revolutionary activities if released.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Fact check: Did VD Savarkar write mercy petitions on Gandhi’s advice, as Rajnath Singh claimed?