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The Allahabad High Court today granted bail to Ashish Mishra, the key accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri Violence case. Mishra, who is Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son, is in jail since October 10, 2021.

The bench of Justice Rajeev Singh today pronounce the judgment which had been reserved on January 18. Earlier, the bail pleas of Mishra and two others had been rejected by the Lakhimpur Kheri District and Sessions court on November 15, 2021.

In the October 3 case, a total of 14 people have been made accused and out of those currently, 13 accused, including Mishra, are lodged in the district jail. The proceedings in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case(s) are going on before the District Court in which Uttar Pradesh Police had filed an exhaustive chargesheet running into 5000 pages on January 3.

Initially, Mishra and other accused in this case were booked under sections 279, 338 and 304-A of Indian Penal Code (IPC), which all were bailable offences dealing with negligent driving. However, in a letter to the Chief Judicial Magistrate (Kheri) in December 2021, the Chief Investigator of the Special Investigation Team had sought permission to invoke sections 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (causing hurt with dangerous weapon), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC, and 3/25 Arms Act against all accused persons including Mishra.

Despite this development, in his final arguments in the bail petition before the high court, Mishra's counsel had argued that all along the prosecution case, Mishra had only been accused of sitting beside the driver of the Thar car and running away after the alleged accident in which farmers were killed. He had also averred that there was no evidence on record to show that the Thar driver had caused the accident on Mishra's order or even that the accident was deliberate. 

But the prosecution had contended that it was on Mishra's command that Thar's driver Hari Om had committed the act of killings.

The case is being investigated by a Special Investigation Team which is being monitored by Justice (Retd) Rakesh Kumar Jain of Punjab and Haryana High Court. 

Case Title: Ashish Mishra @Monu Mishra v. State of UP