HC bins plea against Union minister Ajay Mishra’s acquittal in 23-year-old murder case

“The appeal filed against the acquittal has been rejected by a division bench of Justices Attau Rahman Masoodi and Om Prakash Shukla,” said additional government advocate Arunendra Singh.

Rajeev Gupta, brother of the murder victim, Prabhat Gupta, said, “I will move the Supreme Court against the high court judgment.”

The case dates back to July 8, 2000, when Prabhat Gupta, a student leader of Lucknow University, was shot when he was going to a market in the Tikonia area of Lakhimpur Kheri. Prabhat’s father Santosh Gupta lodged a complaint against four people, including Mishra, at the Tikonia police station in Lakhimpur Kheri.

He alleged that Ajay Mishra and Subhash alias Mama had opened fire on Prabhat. Prabhat suffered bullet injuries and died on the spot. Later Ajay Mishra’s associates Shashi Bhushan alias Pinki and Rakesh alias Dalu allegedly threatened to kill those who helped Prabhat as well. The complainant said his son Sanjeev Gupta and Vinod had witnessed the incident.

Police filed a chargesheet against Ajay Mishra, Subhash, Rakesh and Shashi Bhushan, saying the murder was the fallout of political rivalry. Santosh Gupta alleged that Ajay Mishra had developed enmity with his son Prabhat, who was a worker of Samajwadi Party, over a dispute on a panchayat election. Ajay Mishra was then a BJP worker.

On March 29, 2004, a court in Lakhimpur Kheri acquitted all four accused including Ajay Mishra for want of evidence. The state government filed an appeal against the acquittals, while Santosh Gupta filed a criminal revision petition challenging the judgment. During the pendency of the revision petition, Santosh died. An application was then filed to declare the surviving legal heirs of Santosh as revision petitioners.
The Lucknow bench allowed the legal heirs of Santosh Gupta to participate as victims in the state appeal.

Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra is the prime accused in the killing of four farmers and a journalist in Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021. Ashish is out on bail in the case. The trial in both the cases have begun. Witnesses in both cases are being examined by courts, said Arvind Tripathi, district government counsel in Lakhimpur Kheri.

Ashish Mishra’s case dates back to October 3, 2021, when a convoy of three SUVs, including a Thar owned by Ajay Mishra, ran over a group of protesting farmers, killing four of them and a journalist and injuring several others. The farmers had assembled at the Tikonia crossing to show black flags to Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was scheduled to visit Ajay Mishra’s Baveerpur village for an event.

Farmers were allegedly protesting over a video clip where the Union minister was purportedly heard threatening the protesters. In the subsequent violence, angry farmers lynched two BJP leaders, Shubham Mishra (26) and Shyam Sunder (40), and SUV driver Hari Om Mishra (35). They set ablaze the Thar and a Toyota Fortuner owned by accused Ankit Das, nephew of former Rajya Sabha member Akhilesh Das. The driver of the third SUV, a Mahindra Scorpio, escaped with the vehicle.

The first FIR was lodged on a complaint by Bahraich resident Jagjeet Singh against Ashish Mishra and 15-20 unidentified people. The second FIR was filed on a complaint by BJP leader and local corporator Sumit Jaiswal against unidentified people protesting at the site. Jaiswal is among the 14 people arrested in the case related to the farmer deaths.

The state government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe both the cases. On January 3, 2022 the SIT filed a chargesheet against 14, including Ashish and his uncle Virendra Shukla, who was charged with destruction of evidence.

Meanwhile, seven people were also arrested in connection with the deaths of the two BJP workers and Mishra’s driver. On January 21,2022, the SIT filed a chargesheet against four people, stating that no evidence was found against three others.

In January, Ashish Mishra came out of the jail after being granted interim bail by the Supreme Court. The apex court has also directed that he should not stay in Uttar Pradesh or Delhi during this period.

Hearing Mishra’s plea challenging the Allahabad High Court order denying him bail, the Supreme Court said: “We are conscious of the grave allegations against the petitioner, but we must also acknowledge that principles of procedural fairness require these allegations to be proven in trial proceedings.”