Karnataka High Court Dismisses PIL on Alleged Missing Volume of Gandhi’s Autobiography
The Karnataka High Court on August 28, 2025, dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Jagrutha Karnataka, Jagrutha Bharatha, through its President K N Manjunatha, which claimed the existence of a “Volume 2” of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, allegedly covering the years 1926 to 1947.
The petitioner argued that his research into British-era and post-independence history revealed “distortions and gaps” in historical records. He alleged that important events of the freedom struggle and Partition were missing from standard textbooks and claimed this indicated the existence of another unpublished volume of Gandhi’s writings.
The PIL also sought interim directions to produce a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi at the Independence celebrations on August 15, 1947, to support these claims.
However, a division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice CM Joshi rejected the petition, holding that the request was “vague” and that no such judicial relief could be granted. The bench observed that if the petitioner wished to pursue historical research, there were no legal barriers preventing him from doing so, but the Court could not order disclosure of non-existent or unverified documents.
