On August 28, 2025, the Karnataka High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by ‘Jagrutha Karnataka, Jagrutha Bharatha’, represented by its President K N Manjunatha. The petition sought directions to Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and others to disclose information regarding an alleged ‘Volume 2’ of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, purportedly covering the period from 1926 to 1947.
Manjunatha contended that his research into British-era and modern Indian history revealed significant ‘distortions and gaps’ in historical narratives, which he believed contributed to political turmoil in the country. He further claimed that critical events from the freedom struggle and the Partition of India were absent from textbooks. Based on these findings, he alleged the existence of an additional volume of Gandhi’s autobiography and sought its disclosure.
The PIL also requested interim directions to produce a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi participating in the Indian Independence celebrations on August 15, 1947, to verify the historical claims made in the petition.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice CM Joshi rejected the petition. The court observed that the petitioner’s request to recover the alleged missing volume was ‘vague’ and that no such relief could be granted. The bench noted that if the petitioner wished to undertake scholarly research into history, there were no legal impediments to doing so.
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