For 33 years, a murder trial against a UP legislator Vijay Kumar Mishra has not reached the stage of framing of charge. And things have only grown worse as the Allahabad High Court has reserved orders on the decision to discharge the accused — legislator and his nephew, for close to three years after it stayed the trial in February 2010.
With the wait for justice growing long and uncertain for the victim’s family, the Supreme Court last week issued notice to the Allahabad High Court and the two accused to explain the delay. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir will take up the matter on July 9.
The incident occurred on May 25, 1980 when a doctor Dharnidhar Tripathi was shot dead in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. After investigation, the State police filed a supplementary charge-sheet on May 9, 1988 pointing to the role of Vijay Kumar Mishra, presently MlA from Gyanpur and his nephew Jeet Narayan Mishra in the case. Shots were fired from a jeep driven by the legislator, who was accompanied by his nephew who carried a weapon.
The petition in Supreme Court filed by the deceased doctor’s son Pankaj sought lifting of the stay imposed on the trial proceedings on February 23, 2010. Order for discharging the accused in the case was reserved on August 2, 2011 and since then, the judgement is awaited. Interestingly, the same High Court, which stayed the proceedings, had on September 17, 2008 ordered day-to-day trial in this case noting the delay to be “unfortunate”.
The petition drawn by advocate Sanjeev Singh pointed out that the legislator in question is charged with 60 separate criminal cases mostly pertaining to grievous offences such as murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping. His political clout in the ruling Samajwadi Party was highlighted as one of the reasons that he managed to influence cases against him.
In the present case, the trial was held up from 1995 to 2008 with the original record of the case disappearing from the Session court. Apparently after the case record was sent to the State Government, it did not return from the office of Joint Secretary in Department of Judicial (Criminal) lucknow. This caused the case to suffer long adjournments.
The petition highlighted another instance where the legislator flexed his political muscle in a case of attempt to murder involving a BSP Minister. The same MlA was the main accused in the Nandi case who, after being acquitted by the trial court, wrote to the then Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav not to appeal before the higher court. His request was kept and the State refused to appeal against the order till in 2007. With BSP coming to power, the State Government changed its stand.
A look at the list of criminal cases against the accused MlA indicates that in seven cases, the State Government had withdrawn prosecution while in five cases a closure report was filed.