Lakhimpur case: SC to listen to on March 15 plea towards grant of bail to Ashish Mishra

By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court agreed to record for listening to on March 15 a plea difficult the grant of bail by the Allahabad High Court to Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister Ajay Mishra, in reference to the Lakhimpur Kheri violence that left eight folks, together with 4 farmers, useless.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana was instructed by lawyer Prashant Bhushan that the plea, which was to be listed Friday, has not been within the record of enterprise, and in the meantime, there was an assault on one of many prime witnesses of the case on Thursday evening.

“There has been a mistake. They (Registry officials) are listing it on Tuesday. We will take it up on next Tuesday,” mentioned the bench which additionally comprised Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli.

The matter was talked about for pressing itemizing by Bhushan on March 4 and the court docket had agreed to listen to it on March 11.

Bhushan had submitted that the opposite accused within the case had been transferring courts for grant of bail citing the reduction granted to Ashish Mishra.

The bench had requested the lawyer to intimate the excessive court docket that the highest court docket is listening to the plea for cancellation of bail.

A single-judge bench of the excessive court docket, on February 10, had granted bail to Mishra who had spent 4 months in custody.

Three members of the family of farmers, who had been killed within the violence, have sought a keep on the February 10 bail order of the excessive court docket, saying the decision was “unsustainable within the eyes of regulation as there was no significant and efficient help by the state to the court docket within the matter”.

Recently, one other plea in search of cancellation of bail of Ashish Mishra was filed by advocates Shiv Kumar Tripathi and CS Panda on whose letter the apex court docket had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident.

On October 3 final 12 months, eight folks had been killed in Lakhimpur Kheri throughout violence that erupted when farmers had been protesting towards Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s go to to the world.

Four farmers had been moved down by the SUV.

A driver and two BJP employees had been then allegedly lynched by offended farmers.

A journalist additionally died within the violence that triggered outrage amongst opposition events and farmer teams agitating over the Centre’s now-repealed agri legal guidelines.

On November 17 final 12 months, the highest court docket had appointed Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, former choose of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, to observe the probe by the Uttar Pradesh SIT.

The plea for cancellation of Mishra’s bail has been filed by farmers, Jagjeet Singh, Pawan Kashyap, and Sukhwinder Singh, by way of lawyer Bhushan.

“The 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.”

“The impugned order is unsustainable in eyes of law as there has been no meaningful and effective assistance by the State to the court in the matter contrary to the object of the first Proviso to Section 439 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which provides that in grave offences notice of bail application should ordinarily be given to the public prosecutor,” the plea mentioned.