LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court reserved its order after completing hearing on the bail plea of Ashish Mishra, the son of Union Minister of State Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’ and key accused in Lakhimpur Kheri violence, on Friday.
It may be recalled that the violent incident which had taken place on 2/3 October 2021, had resulted in the loss of eight lives including four farmers who were allegedly trampled by Ashish Mishra alias Monu.
The single judge bench, comprising Justice Krishna Pahel, reserved the order on Ashish’s bail plea.
During the hearing, it was submitted on behalf of Ashish Mishra that at the time of the incident, he was not present at the place of the occurrence.
“Nor was there any witness who heard him saying to run over farmers as there was a huge crowd and siren of police vehicles were blowing at the site,” argued Ashish's lawyer.
He also contended there were affidavits given by 197 persons claiming that Ashish Mishra was present in the village and not at the site of the incident.
Earlier, the High Court had granted bail to Ashish on February 10, 2022 complying which the accused was released from the Lakhimpur district jail on February 15 but as the matter reached Supreme Court, the bail was dismissed and the apex court directed the High court to decide his bail plea after giving adequate opportunity to the victim side to put its arguments.
Accordingly, the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court started hearing his bail plea afresh.
While the High Court had granted bail to Ashish Mishra, it had rejected the pleas of co- accused Lavkush, Ankit Das, Sumit Jaiswal and Shishupal on May 9, 2022.
While rejecting their pleas, the High Court had observed that all four were actively involved in the planning of the offence and its execution in a cruel, diabolic and inhuman manner and as such did not deserve bail.
The bench had further observed that all the four co-accused and the main accused Ashish Mishra came from influential families and the prosecution’s apprehension that they could interfere with the course of justice, tamper with the evidence and influence the witnesses, was not misplaced and cannot be ruled out at this stage.