[Lakhimpur Kheri] Supreme Court to hear tomorrow plea challenging Ashish Mishra bail

The Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday a plea moved by family members of the deceased in the Lakhimpur Kheri killings, seeking cancellation of bail to the prime accused, Ashish Mishra. .A Bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said the matter would be listed before an appropriate bench and heard tomorrow. Advocate Prashant Bhushan told the Bench that one of the witnesses was brutally attacked and that the co-accused are seeking bail based on the Allahabad High Court order. To this, CJI Ramana said, "We are constituting a bench. It will be listed tomorrow. It will be listed before an appropriate bench." "They are saying now that the BJP has won the election, you will see what we can do," Bhushan said. .The Bench was hearing a petition filed by family members of deceased farmers who were mowed down by a car belonging to Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son, Ashish Mishra, at Lakhimpur Kheri.On October 3 last year, eight people were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri during violence that erupted when farmers were protesting against the now revoked farm laws. The protesters had impeded the visit of Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was planning to attend an event in the area.A four-wheeler belonging to Mishra then allegedly mowed down and killed eight persons, including the protesting farmers.After he was arrested, the Uttar Pradesh Police's special investigation team (SIT) filed a 5,000-page chargesheet before a local court, naming Mishra as prime accused in the case.In November, a trial court had rejected his application for bail, prompting Mishra to move the High Court.Justice Rajeev Singh of the Allahabad High Court then granted bail to Mishra on February 10, stating that there might be a possibility that the driver of the vehicle that mowed down the protesting farmers sped up the vehicle to save himself.The UP government did not file an appeal prompting the family members to move the top court challenging the bail granted by Allahabad High Court to Mishra.On the merits of the order, the plea said that the High Court did not consider the overwhelming evidence against Mishra while granting bail since the chargesheet against him was not on brought on record.It was submitted that the High Court granted bail without considering the heinous nature of the crime, the character of the overwhelming evidence against the accused in the chargesheet, the position and status of the accused with reference to the victim and witnesses, the likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice and repeating the offence and the possibility of his tampering with the witnesses and obstructing the course of justice.The plea stated that victims were prevented from bringing the relevant material to the notice of High Court as their counsel got disconnected from the hearing of the bail matter on January 18, 2022.The counsel could barely make any submissions and repeated calls to the court staff to get reconnected were to no avail and application filed by the victims before High Court for an effective rehearing was rejected, the plea said.

[Lakhimpur Kheri] Supreme Court to hear tomorrow plea challenging Ashish Mishra bail

Debayan Roy

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