SC to hear plea against bail to Ashish Mishra on March 15

The top court had last week agreed to take up the plea for hearing on Friday. But as it was not listed, Bhushan urged the bench to take it up and said, “Last night there was an attack on one of the prime witnesses of the case.”

CJI Ramana responded that the non-listing was due to some office mistake and assured that it will be heard on March 15.

On October 3 last year, a convoy of vehicles, including one owned by the Union minister, ran over a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri. Four farmers and a journalist were killed and several others were injured. In the violence that followed, two BJP leaders and the driver of one of the vehicles were killed.

On February 10, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court granted Ashish bail, and said that although he was accused of inciting the driver of a vehicle to run over the protesters, the driver and two co-passengers were also killed allegedly by protesters. Given that there were thousands of protesters, the driver might have sped up the vehicle to save himself, the court had reasoned. In this context, it added that the killing of the driver and the co-passengers could not be overlooked.