The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court will pronounce its verdict today in the 23-year-old Prabhat Gupta murder case in which Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra Teni is the prime accused. Ajay Mishra is the father of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri killings accused Ashish Mishra. The hearing of the case ended on Tuesday. After hearing the case on February 21, 2023, the bench comprising Justice Attu Rehman Masoodi and Justice Om Prakash Shukla reserved its decision in the case.
In 2000, Prabhat Gupta was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri in Surrey Bazar while he was returning home. Prabhat was a member of the youth wing of the Samajwadi Party, while Teni was associated with the BJP back then. Four people including Ajay Mishra Teni were named in the FIR. The other accused in the case are: Subhash Mama, Shashi Bhushan Pinky, and Rakesh Dalu.
The trial court had acquitted Tenni in 2004 due to lack of evidence. In 2004, the UP government back then moved High Court against the decision of the trial court.
In this case, it was argued on behalf of the state government that Teni was having a dispute with student leader Prabhat regarding the panchayat elections. It was alleged on behalf of the government that Prabhat was also shot by Tenni and the other accused Subhash Mama. There were also eyewitnesses to the incident, whose testimony was ignored by the trial court. On this, the defense argued that the testimony of the alleged eyewitness was not considered trustworthy by the trial court, because the eyewitness was said to be an employee of a shop where the incident took place. The defense said that the trial court's decision to acquit Ajay Mishra Teni was justified.
The decision has been reserved three times so far. For the first time on March 12, 2018, Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Dinesh Kumar Singh reserved the decision. For the second time, on November 10, 2022, on the orders of the Supreme Court, Justice Ramesh Sinha and Renu Aggarwal reserved the decision. For the third time, on February 21, 2023, the decision was reserved by the bench of Justice Attu Rehman Masoodi and Justice Om Prakash Shukla.