From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Uttar Pradesh to clearly spell out its stand by Monday on challenging the bail granted in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case to prime accused Ashish Mishra, by the Allahabad High Court.
The Bench led by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana noted that a retired judge-monitored SIT, appointed by the Apex Court, has also recommended to file appeal against the bail granted to him.
During hearing on a petition filed by victims’ families, challenging the High Court’s order on February 10 granting bail to Ashish, the 3-judge Bench noted that two reports of Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, a retired Punjab and Haryana High Court, monitoring the SIT probe into the Lakhimpur massacre had written to the state government to appeal in the top court seeking cancellation of the bail.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing on behalf of the petitioners, pointed out that Ashish had relied in his affidavit on documents to claim he was not present at the scene of crime on October 3 last year. He sked the Court to take serious view of the state dubbing these documents as “doctored.”
Asserting that the UP government had “vehemently opposed” bail plea of prie accused Ashish before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, it told the top court on Tuesday that “the impugned order being of February 10, the limitation period against it is still running and the decision is pending consideration before the relevant authorities.”
As regards the prime witness in the case allegedly attacked on March 10 on the day of Holi, the affidavit said Diljot Singh, who was provided a police gunner, was provoked by the miscreants by throwing colour on him even while admitting that the miscreants hit him with a belt and kicked and punched him and the incident has no connection with Ashish since even the FIR didn’t mention his presence there.
The affidavit also said the families of all victims and all 98 witnesses whose statement were recorded are receiving continuous security under the witness protection scheme of 2018 by providing one armed police gunner, along with permanent security guards nd continuous monitoring through installed CCTV cameras.
The family members of the farmers killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence had on February 21 moved the Supreme Court challenging the February 10 order of the Allahabad High Court enlarging Ashish Mishra on bail, terming it “an improper and arbitrary exercise of the discretion” by the high court.
They 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”.
