Karnataka HC grants bail to accused in Gauri Lankesh murder case, cites delay in conduct of trial

Mohan Nayak, who is associated with the right-wing Hindutva outfit the Sanatan Sanstha is among 17 persons arrested by a Special Investigation Team of the Karnataka police for the murder of the journalist Gauri Lankesh. He is the first of the arrested men – who are linked to a right-wing organized crime gang involved in hate crimes – who has been granted bail.

Previously, the bail pleas of Mohan Nayak, who is accused of renting a house for the killers of the journalist to take shelter in Bengaluru ahead of the crime and providing other logistics like mobile phone SIM cards, had been rejected by the high court and district courts while the Supreme Court overturned a high court decision to drop KCOCA charges against Nayak.

“Though this Court while disposing of Crl.P.No.8325/2018 vide order dated 11.02.2019 had directed the Trial Court to expedite the trial, the grievance of the petitioner is that till date there is no sufficient progress in the trial and in the near future there is no likelihood of the trial being completed,” the high court has observed in its order on Wednesday.

Incidentally, the Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah this week directed the state home department to initiate the process for creation of a special court in the Gauri Lankesh case in order to expedite the trial in the case that began in July 2022.

The high court in its December 7 order also observed that though KCOCA charges had been invoked against Nayak for being a member of an organized crime syndicate he had not been named as a co-accused in any of the cases against others arrested for the journalist’s murder.

“Since the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Kavitha Lankesh’s case supra has observed that at this stage there is no material against the petitioner to invoke Section 3(1) of the COCA, it can be said that there is a slight change in the circumstances after petitioner’s earlier bail application was rejected by this Court,” the Karnataka HC said in its recent order.

Most of the witnesses in the case against Nayak had only stated that he obtained a house on rent in Bengaluru and not of active participation in the conspiracy, the HC observed.

“Even if the charges against the petitioner for the offences under Sections 3(2), 3(3) & 3(4) of COCA are proved, the said offences are not punishable exclusively with death or life imprisonment and the minimum punishment for the said offences is imprisonment for five years. Petitioner has been in custody for the last more than five years,” the HC said.

“Though Section 22(4) of COCA provides for certain rigors for enlarging the accused on bail as against whom charges are made for the offences punishable under the COCA, the same cannot fetter the powers of this Court to enlarge the accused on bail when there is undue delay in trial and the material on record would go to show that the trial may not be completed any time soon,” the HC bench said.

The high court said that since the delay in trial cannot be attributed to the accused he would be entitled to bail.

The high court in a bail filed previously by Nayak had stated “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”.

In October 2021, in a plea by the victim’s sister Kavitha Lankesh against a Karnataka HC decision to drop the KCOCA charges against Mohan Nayak, the Supreme Court had observed 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 was arrested in July 2018 has filed as many as seven bail applications before various forums for release from prison. In the latest plea he argued that there were a total of 527 charge sheet witnesses and only 90 witnesses had been examined till date and that “the chances of trial being completed in the immediate near future is not there”.

Previously, a district court had indicated that some of the accused in the case itself had caused delays in the trial through the frequent filing of various applications.

Nayak, an alternative medicine practitioner from Dakshina Kannada is accused in the Gauri Lankesh case 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 carrying out the killing of the journalist.

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

The journalist 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 has arrested and charged 17 people linked to extremist right wing Hindutva groups who created a syndicate to carry out killings and attacks on critics – primarily in Karnataka and Maharashtra – between 2013-2018.

“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.