Lakhimpur Kheri Deaths: 2 lawyers move SC challenging Ashish Mishra’s bail order
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.
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Ashish Mishra outside Lakhimpur Kheri jail. ANITwo lawyers have filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the bail granted to Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra, key accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence that killed eight people, including four farmers, and a journalist when a convoy of vehicles ran over them in October last year.
The application filed by advocates Shiv Kumar Tripathi and CS Panda sought setting aside of the February 10 order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.
Granting him bail, the HC had said that though Ashish Mishra was accused of firing at a protester and killing him, no firearm injuries “were found either on the body of any of the deceased or on the body of any injured person”.
It also said that though Mishra was accused of inciting the driver of the SUV to run over the protesters, the driver and the two co-passengers were also killed allegedly by the protesters. Given that there were thousands of protesters, the driver might have speeded up the vehicle to save himself, the court had reasoned. It also added that the killing of the driver and the co-passengers could not be overlooked.
The HC also took note that a chargesheet had been filed in the case.
The fresh plea by the two lawyers said the HC order has “manifest error” and was based on “presumption and guesswork”, using the word “might” to arrive at a conclusion that the said crime culminated in a possibility of the driver trying to speed up the vehicle to save himself.
“The said conclusion by the HC justice is unsustainable in law,” they said, adding that the court’s conclusions suffered from non-application of judicial mind.
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