Plea for declaring Indira Gandhi's murder a suicide rejected after 29 yrs

AHMEDABAD: Pending for nearly 29 years, a petition seeking declaring Indira Gandhi's assassination a "suicide through arranged murder" to facilitate Rajiv Gandhi's elevation as prime minister was dismissed at its first hearing by the Gujarat High Court after nobody pressed the case.

Filed in 1986, two years after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the petition came up for hearing for the first time yesterday by a division bench headed by acting Chief Justice V M Sahai, who took no time in dismissing it.

"The prayer of the petitioner is to declare that Mrs Indira Gandhi committed suicide, which cannot be granted. The petition is accordingly dismissed," Justice Sahai said, throwing out the petition.

"No one has put in appearance to press this petition," the court noted.

The plea alleged that the country's first and only woman prime minister had "committed suicide through arranged murder to give power to her son Rajiv Gandhi as hereditary successor and the elections of 1984 were based on national sacrifice made by Indira Gandhi."

The petition filed by Navnitlal Shah was dismissed at the stage of admission after about 29 years. Shah never turned up to press the case even once.