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Lakhimpur case: Supreme Court to hear plea against Ashish Mishra’s bail on March 11
On February 10, the Allahabad high court granted bail to Ashish, the prime accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case. The families of three of the victims approached the top court challenging the order.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on March 11 a plea challenging the bail granted to Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister of state (Home) Ajay Kumar Mishra “Teni”, in connection with the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri last year.
Ashish Mishra is the main accused in the October 3 incident in which eight people were killed. While four farmers and a journalist were mowed down by an SUV in a convoy during a farmers’ protest against the now-repealed farm laws, three others were killed in subsequent violence. One of the cars in the convoy belonged to Mishra.
Mishra was arrested on October 9 last year. The Allahabad high court granted him bail on February 10 and the families of three of the victims approached the top court challenging the order.
After almost two weeks after the appeal was filed, the matter was mentioned on Friday by advocate Prashant Bhushan. He told a bench headed by chief justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana that the matter required urgent consideration as the high court was granting bail to some other accused on the basis of the bail granted to Mishra.
CJI Ramana told Bhushan that the matter could only be listed on March 11 as the other judge part of the bench hearing a suo motu petition on the Lakhimpur violence case was available only that day.
During the hearing, Bhushan urged the top court to observe that the high court should not follow the order granting bail to Mishra. The bench, also comprising justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli said, “You file a memo before the high court informing them that we will be taking up this matter on March 11.”
The three petitioners - Jagjeet Singh, Pawan Kashyap and Sukhwinder Singh – urged the top court to set aside the bail order on the grounds that it did not consider the heinous nature of crime, the overwhelming evidence against the accused in the charge sheet, the likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice, and the possibility of his tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses.
The petition, filed through Bhushan, said, “Lack of any discussion in the high court’s order as regards the settled principles for grant of bail is on account of lack of any substantive submissions to this effect by the state as the accused wields substantial influence over the state government as his father is a Union minister from the same political party that rules the state.”
They further complained that even the victims could not place the relevant material before the high court as their counsel got “disconnected” on the virtual platform when the case was taken up. It also referred to portions from the bail order where the judge said, “there might be a possibility that the driver tried to speed up the vehicle to save himself, on account of which, the incident had taken place”.
This, the victims’ kin termed as “far-fetched imaginary possibilities” as evidence recorded in the charge sheet is to the contrary, showing that the vehicles had been dashing at high speeds of 70-100 km/hr as they approached the scene of crime.
Prior to the appeal by the victims, Mishra’s bail was challenged in the top court by two lawyers – Shiv Kumar Tripathi and CS Panda. They moved an application in the suo motu case being heard by the top court and questioned the slow progress in the investigation of the matter by a special investigation team constituted by the Supreme Court.
In November last year, the top court formed a special investigation team (SIT) to carry out a probe into the violence and appointed a retired judge of the Punjab & Haryana high court, justice Rakesh Jain, to monitor the investigation.
