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The family members of the deceased farmers in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case have approached the Apex Court challenging the Allahabad High Court's order granting bail to the key accused Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister of State (Home) namely Ajay Mishra Teni. 

It has been alleged by the family members that they had to file the appeal as the State of Uttar Pradesh, where the political party of Mishra and his father is in power, has failed to file an appeal against the high court order.

The plea reads,

"There has been a improper and arbitrary exercise of the discretion in the grant of bail as contrary to settled law the Hon’ble High Court has granted bail without at all considering in it’s order:

• the heinous nature of the crime;
• the character of the overwhelming evidence against the accused in the chargesheet;
• position and status of the accused with reference to the victim and witnesses;
• the 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 plea further alleges that "Even the victims were prevented from bringing the relevant material as regards the settled principles for grant of bail to notice of High Court as their counsel ‘got’ disconnected from the hearing on 18.01.2022 before he could barely make any submissions and repeated calls to the court staff to get reconnected were to no avail and application filed by the victims/petitioners herein dated 20.01.2022 (prior to pronouncement of judgment on 10.02.2022) before High Court for an effective rehearing was rejected."

It also states that "The observation of High Court that, “there might be a possibility that the driver tried to speed up the vehicle to save himself, on account of which, the incident had taken place”, is perverse especially when there was nothing on record to show the same and there is evidence in fact in the chargesheet to the contrary showing that the vehicles had been dashing at high speeds of 70-100 km/hr from the time they left the venue of the ‘dangal’; when they passed the petrol pump; when they crossed the police crossing; all the way to the scene of the crime; and the same has been attested to by various eye witnesses including police officials on duty."

In addition to this, another plea has been filed by Advocate Shiv Kumar Tripathi that also seeks cancellation of Mishra's bail stating that "the concept of fairness in action and the postulate of 'justice not only done but seem to be done' still remains a far cry."

Challenging the high court order Tripathi has alleged that the order is liable to be questioned in its wisdom because the concerned Union Minister of State (Home) namely Ajay Mishra Teni named as accused in FIR is yet to be interrogated by the prosecution.

The judgment on Mishra's bail plea was pronounced by the bench of Justice Rajeev Singh on February 10, 2022, which had been reserved on January 18.

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.

Case Title: Jagjeet Singh and Ors. Vs. Ashish Mishra Alias Monu and Anr. | IN RE: VIOLENCE IN LAKHIMPUR KHERI (UP) LEADING TO LOSS OF LIFE