The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected two petitions seeking the cancellation of bail granted to one of the men accused of plotting the assassination of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, The Indian Express reported.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma dismissed a petition filed by Lankesh’s sister Kavitha Lankesh challenging the bail given to Mohan Nayak, noting that the accused had been cooperating with the trial court.
It also put aside an appeal filed by the Karnataka government on the matter.
Gauri Lankesh, the editor of a periodical named Gauri Lankesh Patrike and a prominent critic of Hindutva groups, was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar by a group of men on the night of September 5, 2017, as she was returning home from work.
In December 2023, the Karnataka High Court granted bail to Nayak, who had been incarcerated in July 2018, on the grounds of a delay in the completion of his trial.
Kavita Lankesh had then moved the Supreme Court challenging Nayak’s bail.
At the hearing on Tuesday, Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing the Karnataka government, told the bench that 137 witnesses had been examined by the prosecution in the case, Live Law reported. He added that only 100 witnesses were left to be examined.
The court said that Nayak had cooperated with the trial and had not sought an adjournment of it, adding that he had been in custody since 2018, Bar and Bench reported.
“Under the circumstances, we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned orders passed by the High Court,” the order said. “The special leave petitions are dismissed accordingly.”
The bench also directed the lower court to “expeditiously conduct” the trial, according to Live Law.
Months after allowing Nayak out on bail in December 2023, the High Court in July granted bail to three other men – Amit Digvekar, KT Naveen Kumar and HL Suresh – accused in Gauri Lankesh’s murder. All three had applied for bail citing the example of Nayak.
Investigating agencies have said that the killing of Gauri Lankesh as well as three other cases were linked and that Hindutva groups were behind them.
These cases include Kannada writer and anti-superstition activist MM Kalburgi’s murder in August 2015 and the murder of rationalist and Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare at Maharashtra’s Kolhapur in the same year.
In 2013, anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered in Pune.