The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned a petition seeking re-investigation into the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in 1948 for four weeks, PTI reported. It also asked the petitioner to respond to the amicus curiae’s report that states that the case does not require any more investigation.

A bench comprising Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao told the petitioner that he has to address certain other important points as well. “One of them is delay,” the bench said. “The other is locus. The third is the fact that because of the delay, every piece of evidence pertaining to the incident is lost.” It added that almost all the witnesses related to the case have died.

“Don’t get carried away by the greatness of the person involved...This is about whether there is any evidence available or not,” the court said. “[The] Court will act according to the law and rule and not as per stature of person involved.”

The court was hearing a petition submitted by Pankaj Phadnis, a Mumbai-based trustee of Hindutva group Abhinav Bharat. Phadnis claimed the investigation into Gandhi’s assassination was “one of the biggest cover-ups in history” and sought a re-investigation. Phadnis’ plea claimed that Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were not the only ones who shot Gandhi. He said four shots were fired, and that it was the fourth bullet, fired by a mysterious person, that killed Gandhi.

In his petition filed in October, Phadnis had also said, “The blame on Marathi people in general, and Veer Savarkar in particular, for being the cause of the death of Mahatma Gandhi has no basis in law and facts.”

On Friday, Phadnis sought time to reply to the amicus curiae’s report. The court had appointed senior lawyer Amrendra Sharan the amicus curiae in the case in October and asked him to go through all documents related to Gandhi’s assassination. Sharan, in his report, said, “The bullets that pierced Gandhi’s body, the pistol from which it was fired, the assailant who fired the bullets, and the conspiracy and ideology that led to Gandhi’s assassination have all been duly identified.”