Plea against Shahabuddin's bail: SC Judge recuses himself

New Delhi: A Supreme Court Judge Justice UU Lalit on Monday recused himself from hearing a plea of the mother of three youths who were brutally killed by henchmen of controversial RJD leader Mohd Shahabuddin seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in the case in which he has already been sentenced to life.

A bench comprising Justices Amitava Roy and U U Lalit posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks as counsel appearing for Shahabuddin sought time to file his reply on the plea.

Justice U U Lalit said since he has appeared in a matter concerning the issue, it cannot be heard by him.

The woman, whose two sons were killed and her third son, an eye witness to the incident, later murdered allegedly at the instance of Shahabuddin, has challenged Patna High Court's March 2 order granting regular bail to him.

While a sessions court in Siwan had convicted Shahabuddin for the offence of murder and kidnapping for ransom in the twin murder case and awarded him life imprisonment, the trial in the murder case of the eye witness son is going on.

In her plea, Kalawati Devi has claimed that the high court had "completely lost sight" of the fact that Shahabuddin was a "dreaded criminal, who has absolutely no regard for the law, and granting bail to him even though he has been convicted for heinous offences like murder, abduction etc and is still facing trial in many of the cases lodged against him, would be travesty of justice".

Devi has said in her plea, filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan, that her two sons, Girish and Satish, were abducted by Shahabuddin's henchmen and after being brutally assaulted, they were killed by pouring acid on their bodies, packed in a sack full of salt and buried.

The plea alleged that Devi's third son, Rajiv Roshan, was initially abducted but had managed to escape. He was an eye-witness to the killing of his two brothers.

She claimed that during pendency of trial in the twin murder case, Roshan was killed in June 2014 allegedly at the behest of Shahabuddin who is facing trial in the case.

The apex court had on September 30 cancelled the bail granted to him by Patna High Court in a murder case saying the discretion to release must be applied in "judicious manner" and "not as a matter of course".