Gauri Lankesh murder: Bengaluru court cites SC, HC orders to reject fresh bail plea of key accused

The court said a previous high court order on a bail plea by Nayak had found that “there are sufficient materials to prima-facie indicate the involvement of Accused No. 11, which is not only peripheral but also an active participation in commission of the crime and that the record goes to show that he has facilitated the commission of the organized crime by aiding and assisting in some of the activities relating to the alleged incident”.

The court also referred to an October 21, 2021 order of the Supreme Court which said that “if the material collected by the Investigating Agency reveals nexus of a person with the accused who is a member of the organized crime syndicate, such person can be proceeded under the KCOC Act regardless of his antecedent”.

Nayak, who allegedly provided logistical support to the extreme right-wing ‘crime syndicate’ in carrying out the killing and was an integral part of the syndicate, had sought bail on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence against him and that there were no eyewitnesses to the crime.

Arrested in July 2018, Nayak has filed as many as six bail applications before various forums for release from prison. In the latest petition in the district court, he also cited the long duration of the trial where only 72 of over 480 witnesses had been examined.

“It is well settled while the Court entertaining successive bail application, has a duty to consider the reasons and grounds on which the earlier bail applications were rejected and it has a duty to consider such successive bail application on any fresh ground made out, which persuade the Court to take a different view from the one taken on earlier bail applications,” the district court ruled on Thursday.

“It is to be noted that in this case the Court has framed charge on 30.10.2021 and thereafter made every effort to expedite the trial by regularly fixing dates for trial in the case due to which this Court could examine 72 witnesses and got marked 305 documents till date,” the court said.
“It is relevant to note that the filing of various applications by the accused such as applications for regular bail, default bail, discharge applications etc, have also contributed to the delay,” the court said while rejecting the bail plea of Mohan Nayak.

Nayak, an alternative medicine practitioner from Dakshina Kannada, is accused of being a key conspirator who rented a house a few kilometres away from Lankesh’s home in the guise of starting an acupuncture clinic, but used the facility as a shelter for the hitmen involved in the murder.

The SIT investigation led to Nayak after his phone number was found in the diary of Amol Kale, who is accused of running covert operations to kill Lankesh and three other Hindutva critics between 2013 and 2018.

Gauri Lankesh, 55, an outspoken critic of right-wing Hindutva, was shot dead outside her home in west Bengaluru on the night of September 5, 2017 by two motorcycle-borne assassins.

A Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police arrested and charged 17 people linked to extremist right-wing Hindutva groups who formed a syndicate to carry out killings and attacks on critics – primarily in Karnataka and Maharashtra – between 2013 and 2018.

“The members of this organization targeted persons who they identified to be inimical to their belief and ideology. The members strictly followed the guidelines and principles mentioned in ‘Kshatra Dharma Sadhana’, a book published by Sanatan Sanstha,” the SIT said after it filed a chargesheet against the accused in the case on November 23, 2018.