Anand Mohan

New Delhi/Patna, July 10: The Supreme Court today affirmed a Patna High Court judgment awarding life term to former Bihar MP Anand Mohan in connection with the 1994 murder of Gopalganj district magistrate G. Krishnaiah, virtually sealing the political fate of the dreaded don who once lorded over north Bihar’s Kosi region.

IAS officer Krishnaiah, only 35 years old, was lynched and shot (at Khabra in Muzaffarpur) by a mob that was instigated by Mohan on December 5, 1994.

The mob was protesting against the killing of a supporter of the now defunct Bihar People’s Party (BPP) and four of his associates. Mohan was then an MLA and his wife Lovely Anand an MP, and they headed the BPP.

The two-judge apex court bench of Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar today dismissed appeals by the state government to enhance Mohan’s sentence to death and set aside the acquittals of six others in the case.

The court also rejected pleas by Mohan, 56, to set aside his conviction. Mohan is at present lodged in Saharsa jail.

The trial court had, on October 3, 2007, handed out the death sentence to Mohan and two others for the IAS officer’s murder. Four others, including his wife Lovely Anand, were awarded life terms.

Among those who had got death sentences were former state minister Akhlaq Ahmed and former MLA Arun Kumar. Those who were awarded life terms were three JD(U) leaders — MLA Vijay Shukla, Shashi Shekhar and Harendra Kumar.

But on appeal, the high court commuted the death terms to life and acquitted the four who had been awarded life terms.

The high court held that the prosecution had not been able to establish a case of unlawful assembly with common object of causing death of the deceased, or any other person and hence there could be no conviction.

The high court, however, held on the basis of eye-witness evidence that Anand Mohan had exhorted the lone shooter Bhutkan Shukla — the brother of the dead party supporter Chhotan Shukla — to kill the district magistrate and hence was alone guilty of the offence of abetment of murder.

Bhutkan Shukla was later shot dead in a gang war.

Aggrieved by the high court judgment, Mohan appealed to the top court to set aside his conviction. His case was argued by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani in the apex court.

Jethmalani argued that the FIR in the case had been manipulated to make false allegations against Mohan for political reasons.

He also argued that once the high court had rejected the prosecution version that there was an unlawful assembly with the object of murdering the magistrate, it could not have held Mohan guilty of murder.

Jethmalani contended that the incident took place at the rear end of a procession being led by the politician couple and hence they could not have incited the shooter.

Senior counsel Ranjeet Kumar, who appeared for the state, said the dead BPP supporter, Chhotan Shukla, was a candidate in the ensuing Assembly elections. When Shukla and four of his associates were killed, the BPP organised a protest in which Mohan made provocative speeches seeking revenge for their killings, leading to the killing of the district magistrate.

But the apex court rejected his arguments. The bench agreed with the high court’s view that since Mohan was not the assailant himself, rigorous imprisonment for life, and not the death sentence, would be the appropriate punishment.

“We agree with this view of the High Court and we are of the view that this was not one of those rarest of rare cases where the High Court should have confirmed death sentence. In our considered opinion, A1 (Mohan) was liable for rigorous imprisonment for life,” the bench said.

Political parties were cautious in their reaction to the apex court order. While the JD(U) refrained from issuing a statement, the RJD was careful in choosing its words. “It is unfortunate. We are sad. But we have to accept the verdict of the apex court,” leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Abdul Bari Siddiqui said.