New Delhi, Jan 25.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted interim bail to Lakhimpur Kheri key accused Ashish Mishra for eight weeks. Mishra, the son of Union minister of home Ajay Mishra, will not stay either in Uttar Pradesh or Delhi NCR during this time, the court said.
Mishra junior is accused of leading a convoy of vehicles belonging to BJP party workers which ran over farmers protesting against the central government’s farm laws. Four farmers were killed in the mowing down incident. Four others died in the retaliatory violence.
Ashish Mishra will leave Uttar Pradesh within a week of his release. He will inform the local court and the police about his whereabouts during this period.
A bench led by Justice Surya Kant also granted bail to four other co-accused in a cross-FIR regarding the retaliatory violence, in exercise of their suo motu powers. They will furnish bail bonds and sureties to the satisfaction of the local court seized of the Lakhimpur Kheri incidents.
Interim bail granted to Mishra junior would stand cancelled in case of any attempt either by him or his family to influence or intimidate witnesses, the two-judge bench, which also comprised Justice J.K. Maheshwari, said.
Mishra will mark his attendance at the nearest police station, the court said. Any attempt to delay the trail will also lead to cancellation of his bail.
The bench also asked the trial court dealing with the case with send periodic reports to the court regarding examination of key witnesses in the case. It will now take up the case again on March 14.
At the outset, the bench recorded that it was passing an experimental order to balance the fears of the petitioners regarding the influential accused tampering with the case evidence and witnesses and the right of the accused to liberty and a fair trial.
The bench also took note of the two FIRs, which give diametrically different versions of the occurrence of the incidents at Lakhimpur Kheri, to grant bail to the co-accused in the other FIR.
Their bail pleas were pending before the Allahabad High Court. Mishra junior’s lawyers have floated this two narratives to claim that he wasn’t on the spot when the crime took place and that he was kilometers away to claim his innocence.
