Supreme Court seeks Uttar Pradesh government's response to Ashish Mishra bail appeal

The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Uttar Pradesh government in a plea by Ashish Mishra, prime accused in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence that saw eight dead, challenging the Allahabad High Court order rejecting his bail. [Ashish Mishra @ Monu v. State of UP].A Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and MM Sundresh issued notice in the plea filed by the son of Union Home Minister of State Ajay Mishra, after hearing his counsel Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi. .The Allahabad High Court had in July declined bail to Mishra, who is the main accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case in which 8 were killed after being allegedly mowed down by his vehicle.The deceased protesters, who were agitating against the now-repealed farm laws, had impeded the visit of Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was planning to attend an event in the area..The High Court had first granted bail to Mishra on February 10 this year, stating that there might have been a possibility that the driver of the vehicle that mowed down the protesting farmers sped up the vehicle to save himself.After the High Court granted bail to Mishra in the case, amily members of the deceased had approached the Supreme Court in appeal, seeking cancellation of the bail. Oddly, the State of Uttar Pradesh did not file an appeal against the bail order.Then in April, the apex court had cancelled the bail granted to Mishra by the High Court and remanded the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration. On July 26, the High Court denied Mishra bail, prompting the present appeal before the Supreme Court..Mishra was arrested on October 9, 2021 by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and was sent to three days police custody.On November 15, the Supreme Court stated that it wanted the SIT probe to be supervised by a retired High Court judge from a different State. This was after the Court remarked that it does not have confidence in the judicial commission constituted by the State government to monitor the probe.The UP government had constituted a one-man commission of retired Allahabad High Court judge Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava to monitor the investigation.In November 2021, a trial court had rejected Mishra's application for bail, prompting Mishra to move the High Court. The Allahabad High Court in May had also rejected bail applications filed by four other accused persons in the incident while reasoning that five people lost their lives due to the alleged "dastardly act" of the accused..[Read order]