The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government seeking its response to a petition filed by Ashish Mishra, the son of Union minister Ajay Mishra, in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, reported Live Law.
Ashish Mishra approached the Supreme Court to challenge an order passed by the Allahabad High Court on July 26 that dismissed his bail application. The High Court had said that there was a possibility that he could influence witnesses if he were to be released.
A bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and MM Sundresh on Tuesday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to file its response by September 26.
During the hearing, Mishra’s lawyer Mukul Rohatgi told the court that the first informant in the case was not an eyewitness.
“In one of the first information reports, it was alleged that Mishra had ran out of the car and fired shots from a sugarcane field,” Rohatgi said, according to Live Law. “However, the first informant eventually said that he was not an eyewitness.”
Eight persons, including four farmers, were killed on October 3 after violence broke in the Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh during a protest against the Centre’s agricultural laws that have now been repealed. Farmer bodies had alleged that a vehicle belonging to Ashish Mishra had run over a group of demonstrators.
Mishra was first arrested in the case on October 9. He walked out of jail on February 15 after the Allahabad High Court granted him bail on February 10.
However, families of those killed in the violence challenged the bail order in the Supreme Court, which overturned the High Court verdict and cancelled Mishra’s bail on April 18. He is currently lodged in Lakhimpur prison.
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