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Justice Rajeev Singh of Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the bail plea of Ashish Mishra, the key accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri Violence case.

After his bail, which was granted by the same bench in February this year, having been set aside by the top court last week, Mishra moved the high court again with his bail plea. When the matter came up before the bench of Justice Singh, he recused himself from hearing the same. Now the matter will go to the Chief Justice/ Senior Judge of the High Court for constitution of a fresh bench to hear the matter.

Cancelling Mishra's bail plea on April 18, the Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had noted while granting Mishra bail, the High Court had denied the victims their right to participate in the proceedings. 

Therefore, remitting the case to the high court for "fresh adjudication" of the bail application, the Apex Court bench had said that the same should be done in a "fair, impartial and dispassionate" manner, keeping in mind the principles laid down in Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee & Anr., in which the Apex Court had elucidated various factors while considering an application for bail.

Mishra was also given a week's time to surrender and he surrendered on April 24 at Lakhimpur Kheri district jail.

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

They had alleged that there had been an improper and arbitrary exercise of the discretion in the grant of bail as contrary to settled law. " 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." they had claimed. 

In the October 3, 2021 case, a total of 14 people had been made accused. Allegedly, a Thar car was run over protesting farmers after which violence had broken out in which eight people died including four farm law protestors, two BJP workers, a driver, and a local journalist, while also leaving several others injured.

The proceedings in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case(s) are going on before the District Court in which Uttar Pradesh Police has filed an exhaustive chargesheet running into 5000 pages on January 3.

Case Title: Ashish Mishra @ Monu v. State of U.P.