The Allahabad High Court today upheld the acquittal of Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra Teni, by the trial court in a 23-year-old murder case. A division bench of justices Attau Rahman Masoodi and Om Prakash Shukla dismissed the UP Government’s appeal against the trial court’s 2004 decision to acquit him in the murder of Samajwadi Party’s student leader Prabhat Gupta in the year 2000.
This case was first heard by the Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench in the year 2004. The High Court has three times since then and over the course of 14 years, withheld judgement in this matter.
This case dates back to 2000, when Prabhat Gupta, a budding student leader of the Samajwadi Party, was fatally shot close to his home in Tikonia (Lakhimpur Kheri). The murder took place around rural body polls in Uttar Pradesh. Four persons, including Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni, Subhash Mama, Shashi Bhushan Pinky, and Rakesh Dalu were identified as perpetrators in the complaint.
The government’s legal representative had maintained that because the individual who died and the lawmaker belonged to different political parties, they were at odds. Police allegedly produced some eyewitnesses in the case, according to the government, but the trial court disregarded their testimony. The statements were discarded by the court since it did not find them to be credible.
The High Court also dismissed the revision plea preferred by the complainant against the acquittal order. The court said that the prosecution has utterly failed to establish the chain of events which could prove the guilt of the accused persons.
“Evidence recorded in the present case has been appreciated in its correct perspective and the Trial court has at no point of time missed the woods of the tree. Thus, we do not find any perversity in the order of acquittal passed by the Trial Court and in any case, the law presumes double presumption in favour of the accused after a due adjudication by the trial Court,” the Court said.
Santosh Gupta, the late father of Prabhat Gupta, declared in the FIR he filed in this matter that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader shot his son first. According to Rajeev Gupta, the brother of the victim, “Those people stopped my brother. Then a bullet was fired. The first shot came from Ajay Mishra, striking him in the temple. The second shot from Subhash Mama struck him in the chest. My brother then collapsed on the road and passed away instantly.”
Santosh Gupta filed a revision plea under Sections 397 and 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code before the High Court in opposition to the decision of the lower court. The amendment, which was tied to the state government’s Criminal Appeal against the acquittal ruling, was allowed in February 2005.
Ajay Mishra Teni requested a stay of arrest in this matter from the High Court after the case was registered. His arrest stay was overturned on January 5, 2001, after the charge sheet was submitted. The Lakhimpur police did not arrest him even after the arrest stay was rejected by the Lucknow bench of the High Court.
The deceased’s relatives returned to the High Court with this issue on May 10, 2001, and Justice Naseemuddin’s bench subsequently ordered the politician’s arrest. He finally turned himself into the authorities after a month and a half. Afterwards, he was sent to the hospital because he claimed to be sick and then got bail from the sessions court the next day. He was exonerated by the lower court in 2004.
Rajeev Gupta had said, “Despite being the main accused in the murder of my brother, Teni did not go to jail for a single day. The whole system was in his hands.”
Ajay Mishra Teni is a resident of Banveerpur village in the Lakhimpur district of Uttar Pradesh, just adjacent to the Nepal border. A straight route connects this hamlet with Tikinia, the location of Prabhat Gupta’s murder.
Notably, on 3 October 2021 at Banbirpur village near Tikunia in the Lakhimpur Kheri district, four protesting farmers and a journalist were run over by a vehicle that was part of the convoy of the minister. Two BJP members and Ajay Mishra Teni’s driver were lynched by the demonstrators in the subsequent violence.
The occurrence claimed the lives of 10 eight people and 10 others were injured. His son Ashish Mishra is the main accused in the case and is currently on interim bail. The farmers were protesting against the now withdrawn three farm laws passed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Union Government.
Ajay Mishra Teni was known as a history-sheeter criminal before entering politics. He was the subject of several cases, ranging from murder to drug trafficking. On the other hand, his history sheet was closed in 1996 under the High Court’s directives.
On the final page of the prosecution diary, RP Tiwari, who was in charge of the investigation into the murder of Prabhat Gupta, noted the following about Ajay Mishra Teni, “Ajay Mishra alias Teni is the General Secretary of the BJP and because of the special status of being an MLA and close to Ram Kumar Verma who is a minister in the Government of Uttar Pradesh, no one in the area dares to say or do the rightful thing.”
“Moreover, due to the region’s proximity to Nepali territory and the former’s involvement in smuggling operations, he also has a very strong financial standing,” he added.
