SC to hear plea challenging Shahabuddin's bail on Sept 28 as RJD strongman's lawyer seeks more time

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday posted the hearing on a bunch of pleas challenging the bail given to RJD strongman Mohd Shahabuddin on September 28 after his lawyer sought more time to defend his client.

During the hearing today, victim's lawyer Prashant Bhushan informed the apex court that there were 45 cases against Shahabuddin, out of which nine are murder cases.

Bhushan argued that in at least 10 cases, Shahabuddin had been convicted by the lower courts.

Calling him as a serious threat to the society, Bhushan strongly pleaded the apex court to cancel his bail in the best interest of the society. However, Shahabuddin's lawyer asked for more time to respond in the matter.

Shahabuddin, who is accused in several cases including murder, was recently released from the Bhagalpur Jail following a Patna High Court order.

In fresh trouble for the RJD leader, the mother of three youths, who were brutally killed by henchmen of the controversial politician, had moved the Supreme Court on Sunday seeking cancellation of bail granted to him in the case in which he has already been sentenced to life.

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

While a sessions court in Siwan had convicted Shahabuddin for the offence of murder and kidnapping for ransom in the twin murder case and had awarded life imprisonment to him, 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".

On September 19, the apex court had sought a response from Shahabuddin on a separate plea filed by Devi's husband Chandrakeshwar Prasad challenging the bail granted to him by Patna High Court in the murder case of their third son.

The apex court is also hearing a separate plea filed by the widow of journalist Rajdev Ranjan, who was murdered in Siwan allegedly at the instance of Shahabuddin, seeking transfer of the case to Delhi.

In her plea, Devi has said that as per an affidavit filed by the Bihar government in the apex court, till November 2014, trials in at least 38 cases were pending against him in which he was facing alleged heinous charges of murder, attempt to murder, rioting with deadly weapon, extortion and others.

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 acid poured on them and their bodies, packed in a sack full of salt, buried.

With PTI inputs