Families of those killed at Lakhimpur move SC against bail to Ashish Mishra

The families of those killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, in which a BJP convoy led by Ashish Mishra mowed down farmers protesting the farm laws, have moved the Supreme Court against the bail granted to Mishra by the high court.

The Allahabad High Court granted Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra's son bail on February 10. Three persons, who lost their family members in the incident, have challenged the bail granted to him and have urged the SC to cancel it.

The trio, who have challenged Ashish Mishra's bail through advocate Prashant Bhushan, are Jagjeet Singh (lost his brother, a farmer), Pawan Kashyap (lost his journalist brother) and Sukhvinder Singh (lost his son Gurvinder Singh, the youngest killed in the incident).


A chargesheet was filed on January 3, 2022, but the matter has not been listed since, the petition filed by the families claimed. On the other hand, the key accused has been granted bail, their petition said.

Moreover, the state, ruled by the political party to which the accused belongs, has so far failed to file an appeal against the order granting bail to Misra junior, they said. The sessions judge, Lakhimpur Kheri, had earlier denied bail to the accused, they said.

But the HC had improperly and arbitrarily exercised its discretion to grant bail to Ashish Mishra without considering all aspects of the case. These include the heinous nature of the crime; overwhelming evidence against the accused in the chargesheet; status of the accused with reference to the victims and witnesses; likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice and repeating the offence; and the possibility of his tampering with the witnesses and obstructing the course of justice.

The petitioners also pointed out that the accused never placed the chargesheet filed against him in the HC. The HC only sought for it on the date of the final hearing. The court neither considered nor dealt with the overwhelming evidence against the accused in the chargesheet.

The victims were prevented from bringing relevant material to the notice of HC as their counsel "got" disconnected from the hearing on January 18, 2022, before he could barely make any submissions and repeated calls to the court staff to get reconnected were to no avail.

An application filed by the victims on January 20, 2022, before the High Court for a rehearing was rejected.