it asked the Delhi HC to record afresh the statement of the approver for CBI on whose confessional statements accused were awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed anguish at the 37 years of delay in the trial relating to the murder of then Union Railway Minister LN Mishra at Samastipur, Bihar, and the attempt on then Chief Justice of India AN Ray in Delhi by alleged Anand Margis.
A bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai directed the Delhi High Court to record afresh the statement of Vikram, approver for CBI on whose confessional statements accused Santoshanand Avadhoot and Sudevanand Avadhoot were awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment and advocate Ranjan Dwivedi was sentenced to four years RI by the trial court.
The convicts have challenged their conviction on the ground that CBI's approver Vikram had retracted his confession.
"Before parting with the record of the case, we are constrained to say that we are distressed beyond words to find that the case relating to the attempt on the life of the CJI remains stuck up at the stage of the appeal even after about 37 years of the occurrence. We are informed that the other case of the killing of Shri LN Mishra is still mired before the trial court, the bench said.
On March 20, 1975, at about 4.15 pm when the car in which Justice AN Ray, the Chief Justice of India, was travelling along with his son Ajoy Nath Ray, head constable Jai Nand and driver Inder Singh, two hand grenades were lobbed inside the car on Bhagwan Das Road in central Delhi, which they escaped as the explosives failed to go off.
About two and a half months before the incident, LN Mishra, the then Railway Minister, was killed in a bomb blast place during a function on the platform of Samastipur Railway station.
CBI had arrested the four persons and one of the accused Vikram, who turned an approver, made a confessional statement that Mishra's killing and the attempt on the life Justice Ray were part of a larger conspiracy of the organisation.
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