SC to set up bench to hear plea against bail to Ashish Misra in Lakhimpur Kheri case
Darpan News Desk IANS, 15 Mar, 2022 11:52 AM
New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will constitute a bench to hear on Wednesday a plea filed by the family members of the farmers, mowed by a car belonging to Ashish Misra, in Lakhimpur Kheri challenging bail granted to him by the Allahabad High Court.
Misra is the son of Union Minister and BJP MP Ajay Kumar Misra.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said a bench will be constituted, which heard the matter earlier and scheduled the matter for hearing on Wednesday.
Earlier, a bench comprising Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had appointed a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to monitor the probe.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing some farmers, submitted that there was an attack on one of the prime witnesses in the case. Bhushan claimed people who attacked the witness threatened by saying that now that the BJP has won, they will take care of him. He had submitted that other co-accused are also seeking bail relying on the high court order. In February, a single-judge bench of the high court granted bail to Mishra who had spent four months in custody.
On March 11, the Supreme Court had agreed to list on March 15, a plea filed by the family members of the farmers, mowed by a car belonging to Ashish Misra, in Lakhimpur Kheri challenging bail granted to him by the Allahabad High Court.
The plea contended that the family members were forced to move the apex court since Uttar Pradesh has failed to file an appeal challenging bail granted to Misra.
The plea argued that the high court granted bail without considering the heinous nature of the crime and also in the backdrop of overwhelming evidence against the accused in the charge sheet. The plea further argued that there is likelihood of the accused tampering with the witnesses and causing obstruction in justice.
In November last year, the Supreme Court appointed Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, to monitor the Lakhimpur Kheri violence probe. The top court also reconstituted the SIT investigating the incident and appointed IPS officer S.B. Shiradkar, as its head.
Misra was arrested on October 9 last year in the case. On October 3, 2021, eight people, including four farmers, were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri in clashes during a farmers' protest.
Demanding the MSP of wheat to be fixed at Rs 2,830 per quintal (as against present Rs 2,015 per quintal), Amarinder Singh said the farmers should not be forced to subsidise the consumers, which they have been doing since long.
Amarinder Singh said MP Pratap Bajwa had already demanded a district status for Batala, in his letter dated August 11 and had cited Batala's historic importance and its connection with Guru Nanak Dev, who had married Mata Sulakhni in Batala in 1487.
A source in the security set up said that Srinagar alone recorded 16 terror-related incidents, 21 per cent of the total of 75 incidents reported from across the Valley till so far this year, leaving behind the traditional hotbed of terrorism of Pulwama, Anantnag and Shopian.
Congress chief spokesperson, Randeep Surjewala said in a statement, "The Khattar government has lost the confidence and the mandate of the people and it should leave. When your party can talk to the Taliban, why not farmers."
Researchers from National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi, under the Ministry of Health; CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, and University of Cambridge in the UK examined how the Delta variant was able to evade the immune response.
Senior Superintendent of Police Swapan Sharma told the media that Babbi was in touch with the members of the Ajaib Khan gang lodged in a Sangrur jail with whom he had hatched a conspiracy to eliminate rival gangsters Mani Sheron and Feteh Nagri.
