Supreme Court Issues Notice In Plea To Cancel Bail Of Accused In Gauri Lankesh Murder Case

In a recent development, Justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma of the Supreme Court issued notice in a plea challenging grant of bail to an accused in journalist Gauri Lankesh's murder case.

The petition, moved by Lankesh's younger sister Kavita Lankesh, seeks cancellation of the bail granted to Mohan Nayak, who is alleged to have been a part of the conspiracy to murder.

Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru in 2017, was a journalist and editor of Kannada tabloid Lankesh Patrike. Pursuant to her assassination, an investigation was launched and a chargesheet filed, while further investigation continued.

After grant of approval for invoking provisions under the Karnataka Control of Organized Crime Act (COCA), an additional chargesheet was filed in which Nayak was arraigned as accused No.11. He was arrested in 2018. The allegation against Nayak was that he had harbored accused Nos. 2 and 3, who shot Lankesh, in pursuit of the conspiracy to murder.

Though Nayak applied for bail multiple times before different courts, he was denied relief until December 7 last year, when he was granted bail by the Karnataka High Court noting that he had spent over 5 years in custody and the trial was not likely to be completed soon.

In respect of statements of witnesses examined, the Karnataka High Court had observed that the witnesses did not depose to Nayak's presence in the meetings wherein Lankesh's murder was allegedly planned.

It was further noted that confessional statements of accused persons were recorded prior to receiving approval for invoking COCA. Besides, requirements under Section 19 of the Act were not complied with.

In addition to the above, the High Court considered that even if the charges against Nayak under COCA were proved, the offences were not exclusively punishable with death or life imprisonment. The minimum punishment entailed imprisonment for 5 years and Nayak had already undergone incarceration for that period.

Remarking that the delay in trial was not attributable to Nayak, bail was granted. Aggrieved, petitioner-Kavitha Lankesh approached the Supreme Court.

Notably, CBI had informed a Pune court in 2017 that Gauri Lankesh's murder was linked to the murder of Narendra Dabholkar, an anti-superstition activist from Pune. In 2018, the Supreme Court had asked the agency whether there was any link between the murders of Dabholkar, Lankesh, Govind Pansare (a CPI leader and author) and MM Kalburgi (a professor and author).

There are widespread allegations that the aforesaid murders were handiworks of right-wing fundamentalists opposed to the ideas expressed by the slain authors/activists. On Dabholkar's daughter's request to file additional documents in a separate case, the Supreme Court had observed last year that the CBI could look into said documents to examine the issue of a larger conspiracy.

Counsels for petitioner: Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi; AOR Aparna Bhat; Advocates Rohan Sharma and Rashmi Singh

Case Title: Kavitha Lankesh v. The State of Karnataka & Anr, Special Leave Petition (Criminal) Diary No(s). 52512/2023

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