The Supreme Court on Wednesday confronted the Uttar Pradesh Government, saying the retired judge appointed by the court to monitor the Lakhimpur Kheri case investigation had himself urged the State to appeal against the bail granted to prime accused Ashish Mishra, a Union Minister’s son.
The State had, however, not appealed the Allahabad High Court’s bail order in the apex court.
Instead, the families of the farmers mowed down in Lakhimpur Kheri had to move the top court for cancellation of the bail.
“It appears from the report submitted by the monitoring judge that he had recommended the cancellation of bail... He had requested [you] to file an SLP [Special Leave Petition] seeking cancellation of the bail order passed by the Allahabad High Court,” Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, heading a three-judge Special Bench, addressed the U.P. side on March 30.
Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, who represented the State, said he had “no idea about this recommendation” made by the monitoring judge.
Former Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain was appointed as the monitoring judge of the probe to “ensure transparency, fairness and absolute impartiality”. The retired judge’s appointment was meant to assure “full and complete justice to the victims of crime”.
SIT reports sent
During the hearing, Justice Surya Kant, who was also on the Bench with Justice Hima Kohli, explained to Mr. Jethmalani that two reports, on February 10 and February 14, were sent by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) in the State government.
Later, after enquiring, Mr. Jethmalani conveyed to the court that it seemed the Additional Chief Secretary had not received these letters.
The Bench directed that copies of the reports be given to the State and to the kin of the farmers.
‘Don’t wait any further’
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, for the petitioners, urged the Bench to not wait any further. He said the government had conveyed its opposition to the bail granted by the High Court to the Union Minister’s son in its counter affidavit before the apex court.
U.P., in its counter affidavit, had submitted that it had “vehemently opposed” the bail plea in the High Court. It argued that it was “untrue” on the part of the farmers’ families to claim in the apex court that the government did not “effectively” object to the grant of bail.
“So, if the State is opposed to the bail... The order of the High Court should be stayed and the bail cancelled,” Mr. Dave submitted forcefully. He also referred to an earlier counter-affidavit filed by the State before the High Court that had opposed a plea of “alibi” by the accused as “totally false”. The affidavit said the accused was “sitting in his Fortuner car along with anti-social elements who were armed with deadly weapons at the place of occurence and the same has been endorsed by a plethora of eye witnesses”.
Hearing on April 4
The court fixed the case for hearing on April 4 on the question of cancellation of bail.
The SIT has already filed lengthy charge sheets in the case. The court had made sure that the SIT was composed of directly recruited IPS officers- S.B. Shiradkar, Padmaja Chauhan and Dr. Preetinder Singh - who had no roots in U.P. in order to avoid any “lurking suspicion in respect of the fairness and independence of the investigation and preserve the faith and trust of the people in the administration of the criminal justice system”.
