SC upholds life sentence of Anand Mohan in Krishnaiah murder case
Patna,(BiharTimes): The Supreme Court Tuesday rejected the appeal of former Lok Sabha member Anand Mohan who was convicted and awarded life sentence in the murder of Bihar's Gopalganj district magistrate G. Krishnaiah in December 1994.
Upholding the conviction awarding him life imprisonment, the apex court bench headed by Justice A.K. Patnaik in its judgement said that there was no merit in his plea. The apex court also rejected the Bihar government's plea seeking enhancement of punishment for Anand Mohan.
The Bihar government had appealed to the court to enhance Anand Mohan’s punishment to the death sentence, and had also appealed against the acquittal of all other accused, including his wife Lovely Anand in the case.
The appeals by Mohan and the state of Bihar were filed against the December 2008 verdict of the Patna High Court, which had commuted Anand Mohan’s death penalty, awarded by the trial court, to a life sentence and acquitted all others due to lack of evidence.
Mohan, a former MP from Sheohar, was awarded a life term under Sections 302 (murder) and 109 (abetment of offence).
Krishnaiah was lynched by a mob allegedly led by Anand Mohan, Lovely Anand and Munna Shukla on Dec 5, 1994, a day after Munna Shukla's brother Chhotan Shukla, a gangster with political ambitions, and three others were gunned down in Muzaffarpur.
A trial court had on Oct 3, 2007, awarded death sentences to Anand Mohan, Akhlaq Ahmed and Arun Kumar while Lovely Anand, Munna Shukla, Shashi Shekhar and Harendra Kumar were given life imprisonment.
Mohan, who was then the Bihar Peoples Party (BPP) chief, and the others were alleged to have made provocative speeches to incite the mob to kill Krishnaiah near Khabra on the outskirts of north Bihar's Muzaffarpur town.
Krishnaiah's vehicle had got trapped in the funeral procession of Chhotan Shukla, who along with three others, was killed the previous day while returning from an election campaign for the 1995 assembly polls.
Some people from the crowd had pulled Krishnaiah out of his car and brutally thrashed him before one of them pulled the trigger, killing the young IAS officer on the spot.
Altogether, 36 people were made accused in the case, but the trial court had acquitted 29 earlier, giving them the benefit of doubt.
The Bihar government had appealed to the court to enhance Anand Mohan’s punishment to the death sentence, and had also appealed against the acquittal of all other accused, including his wife Lovely Anand in the case.