New Delhi:
Family members of farmers killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging an order of the Allahabad High Court granting bail to prime accused and union minister Ajay Mishra Teni’s son Ashish Mishra.
The family members of the murdered farmers said they filed the petition against the high court’s order “as the State of Uttar Pradesh where the political party of the accused and his father is in power has failed to file appeal against the impugned order”.
Four farmers were mowed down by an SUV in Lakhimpur Kheri when those against farm laws were holding a demonstration against Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s visit on October 3, 2021. Two BJP workers and a driver were beaten to death allegedly by angry protesters. A local journalist was also killed in the violence.
This is the second petition challenging the February 10 order of the Allahabad High Court enlarging Ashish Mishra on bail. A week after the Allahabad High Court granted him bail, advocates Shiv Kumar Tripathi and CS Panda had filed a plea in the Supreme Court in February 17 challenging the high court’s order.
The bail order has “manifest error” as the High Court has rested its reasoning on “presumption and guesswork” using the word “might” to arrive at a conclusion that the said crime culminated in a possibility of the driver trying to speed up the vehicle to save himself, they had submitted.
The latest petition by family members of the deceased farmers termed it “an improper and arbitrary exercise of the discretion” by the high court.
They said the grant of bail was contrary to settled law as 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; 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 Supreme Court had on November 17 last year appointed Punjab and Haryana High Court’s retired judge Rakesh Kumar Jain to monitor the probe into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence “to assure full and complete justice to the victims of crime”.
This was aimed “to ensure transparency, fairness and absolute impartiality in the outcome of the investigation in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident which is to be conducted in a time-bound manner,” a Bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana had said.
The top court had also upgraded and reconstituted the SIT appointed by the Uttar Pradesh Government by appointing three senior police officers suggested by the state to it.
Those included in the reconstituted SIT were IPS officers SB Shiradkar, Padmaja Chauhan and Preetinder Singh.