Supreme Court Adjourns Lakhimpur Kheri Matter To Monday, Asks UP To File Reply To Report Of Retired Judge

The Supreme Court Bench comprising of Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli has asked the State of Uttar Pradesh to reply to the report of the retired judge heading the committee that has been appointed by the Supreme Court. The reply has to be filed by Monday.

The report given by the judge recommends that the bail granted to Ashish Mishra should be cancelled.

Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani submitted that the letter of the retired judge has not been received by the State.

Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave appearing for the petitioner stated that "the judgment of the High Court of Allahabad suffers from non-application of mind". He also submitted that since the reply given by the Uttar Pradesh Government also says that they were not opposing the bail, the Supreme Court should cancel the bail.

The CJI said that a copy of the report would be provided to the parties and the parties should respond to it by Monday.

The Uttar Pradesh Government in its reply filed yesterday to the petition seeking cancellation of bail of Ashish Mishra, told the Supreme Court that the state has taken all efforts to protect the witnesses and families of victims. It was submitted that, "each witness has one armed police gunner. The families of the victims have one armed gunner each, along with a permanent security guard and continuous monitoring through installed CCTV cameras, as well as barrier duty at their residence. A total of 98 persons have been provided security, of which 79 are from Kheri district, 17 from outlying districts and 2 from the State of Uttarakhand."

The state government has also informed that it had opposed the bail plea of Ashish Mishra before the Allahabad High Court. The state has said that, "the bail application was vehemently opposed by the State, and any averments to the contrary in the SLP are completely false and merit to be rejected."

In October 2021 a major violence broke out in Lakhimpur Kheri district where four farmers were mowed down by an SUV when farmers were protesting against the farm laws during Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's visit to the area.

The prime accused in the incident Ashish Mishra was granted bail on 10th February by the Allahabad High Court. In November 2021, the Supreme Court had appointed a retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge, Rakesh Kumar Jain to monitor the investigation in the case.