On Thursday, the Bombay High Court said that during the trial of Bhima Koregaon violence case accused Vernon Gonsalves on Wednesday, it did not refer to the literary classic ‘War & Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy but a book called ‘War & Peace in Junglemahal’ by Biswajit Roy, a Kolkata-based journalist.
The Court said that it was “shocked & hurt” to learn about the media reports stating that it has raised a question over Tolstoy’s book ‘War & Peace.’
It was widely reported on Wednesday that the single judge bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal of Bombay HC had observed that “how can the accused in Bhima Koregaon violence Gonsalves can have a book like ‘War & Peace’ at his home.”
During the proceedings in the Court on Thursday, lawyer Yug Chaudhary, who was appearing for Sudha Bhardwaj, another accused in Bhima Koregaon case, brought this online criticism to the court’s notice & informed the judge that his observations have been misquoted.
Chaudhary told the Court that according to him those observations were not for Tolstoy’s book but for another book of the almost similar name “WAR & PEACE IN JUNGLEMAHAL: PEOPLE, STATE & MAOISTS,” which was in the seizure ‘punchnama’ of the articles seized from Gonsalves’ residence during the raids of Pune Police.
Chaudhary said that he brought this matter to the Court in Thursday’s proceedings.
“I brought this matter to the Court’s notice today as it was completely misquoted & Justice Sarang was hurt. It was clear from the list of seized items recorded in the ‘punchnama’ that which book was referred to by the judge yesterday. This should have been reported responsibly,” he said.
