NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday set aside the bail granted to Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister Ajay Mishra, in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, observing the Allahabad High Court was myopic and in a tearing hurry to give him relief.
The order came on a petition filed by the family members of the victims of the violence. It directed Ashish to surrender within a week. A bench led by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana directed the high court to decide the matter afresh, observing among other factors that the victims didn’t get effective hearing.
The bench observed that instead of looking into aspects such as the nature and gravity of the offence, severity of the punishment in the event of conviction, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused or victims, likelihood of the accused fleeing, likelihood of tampering with the evidence and witnesses and the impact that his release may have on the trial and the society at large, the high court adopted a myopic view of the evidence on the record.
“The high court shall decide the bail application afresh expeditiously and preferably within a period of three months,” the order read. The bench said the high court took into account several irrelevant considerations while ignoring judicial precedents and parameters.
“It has been ruled on numerous occasions that a FIR cannot be treated as an encyclopedia of events. While the allegations in the FIR that the accused used his firearm and the subsequent post mortem and injury reports may have some limited bearing, there was no legal necessity to give undue weightage to the same,” the court said. It expressed disappointment at the manner in which the high court failed to acknowledge the rights of the victims.