The issues
Allahabad High Court’s order dated February 10, 2022 was challenged through an application filed in the Supreme Court of granting bail to Ashish Mishra, prime accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence incident which caused lives of 8 people.
Advocates Shiv Kumar Tripathi filed The application and CS Panda in the PIL, in Re Violence in Lakhimpur Kheri (Utter Pradesh) causing loss of life WP(Crl) No.426/2021 which was taken into cognisance by the Supreme Court on the basis of a tabled petition seeking proper investigation into the case in which the son of Ajay Kumar Mishra (Union Minister) is involved.
It has also been stated that there is a manifest error in the application apparent on the face of record of the High Court’s order in paragraph 23 where it was observed that
“……… thousands of protesters assembled at the site of incident and there might be a probability that the driver tried to speed up the vehicle t in order to save himself, because of which, the incident had taken place”.
In Lakhmimpur Kher in October last year, the issue of the death of farmers protesters who ran over by the vehicles in the convoy of Ashish Mishra.
With reference to the matter stated in the application, para 23 manifest error with regard to the mandatory necessity that no presumption of pre-conceived action ought to creep into the mind of learned judge(s) while examining the case of heinous crime of murder.
A legitimate question was put that how could the learned Justice of High Court rest his reasoning on probability, presumption and guess work to get to a conclusion that the said crime culminated in a possibility that driver was trying to speed up the vehicle to protect himself.
The conclusion by the learned High Court justice is unsustainable with regards to the law of the land.
The applicants have averred that the High Court’s reasoning as per incuriam and it sufferers from the non application of judicial mind thereby taking recourse to probability and assumptions without the support of direct evidence.
Backrgound
Actually, this case was registered on 3rd of October 2022, when several farmers were holding protests against the visit of Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to Lakhimpur Kheri district, against Ashish Mishra for an incident that took place, and four protesting farmers were mowed down and killed by an SUV.
Soon after, the police had filed a FIR against son of minister Ajay Kumar Mishra i.e. Ashish Mishra and others in connection with the incident case under Section 302 IPC.
A charge sheet was filed by The Uttar Pradesh Police on January 3 in the Lakhimpur Kheri Violence case before a local Court putting in the name of Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son, Ashish Mishra as the prime accused.
Moreover, the police had also plead and prayed before the Court that Sections 279 (negligent driving), 304A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), and 338 (causing grievous hurt) against all accused be removed and instead of these, Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (causing hurt with dangerous weapon), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), and 3/25 Arms Act be registered against them.
Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court was appointed by The Supreme Court to monitor the investigation in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case in November 2021.
Published By: Jaspreet Singh
Edited By: Kritika Kashyap
