SC to hear plea against Ashish Mishra's bail on March 11

New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed to hear a plea against the Allahabad High Court granting bail to Lakhimpur Kheri prime accused Ashish Mishra. The top court on Friday said that it would hear the plea on March 11, PTI reported.

Chief Justice NV Ramana led bench noted the argument of lawyer Prashant Bhushan that other accused in the case are moving courts to receive bail and are citing the relief granted Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra. CJI said that March 11 is the possible date since other judges needed to be available.

Prashant Bhushan had submitted that the Allahabad HC did not follow the law laid down while granting bail to Mishra. It did not consider that aspects like tampering with evidence or fleeing from justice, he said. He also sought the SC to direct the HC not to grant bail to co-accused for the time being.

The bench directed to file a memo before the HC that the SC would hear the case on March 11.

Three family members of the killed farmers in Lakhimpur violence had approached the SC for a stay on the February 10 order of Allahabad HC granting bail to Mishra. They said that the verdict was "unsustainable in the eyes of law as there has been no meaningful and effective assistance by the state to the court in the matter."

On October 3 last year, eight people got killed in Lakhimpur Kheri during a farmers' demonstration against the three contentious farm laws after an SUV rammed into a crowd here. The farmers were protesting at an area where Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was about to visit. Four of the dead were farmers, while two others allegedly succumbed to enraged farmers' attacks. A journalist was also killed.