Eight years after activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh was killed on September 5, 2017, the trial is progressing at a snail’s pace. Lapses by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress governments and the judiciary have led to inordinate delays.
During a panel discussion organised by The News Minute on press freedom in India, journalist and author of the book I am on the Hit List Rollo Romig and writer Shivasundar both addressed the causes for delays in the trial. The event was held on September 3 in Bengaluru.
Rollo spoke about how inaction on the part of both governments allows them to avoid responsibility and accountability for delays.
“There are so many different ways to delay and derail a trial that look perfectly legitimate, that look like the system as it is supposed to work. The government doesn’t want the appearance of interfering with the trial, but they don’t need to. They can be very subtle about slow-walking the trial.”
In his book, Rollo gives a detailed breakdown of how this occurred in the Gauri Lankesh murder trial.
The trial started only on July 4, 2022, eight months after the charges had been framed.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by BK Singh had charged 18 suspects not just for Gauri’s murder but also for functioning as an organised crime syndicate. Seventeen of them were arrested, and one man still remains at large.
Rollo writes that one of the accused, Mohan Nayak, argued before the Karnataka High Court that the charge of organised crime did not apply to him as he had never before been chargesheeted for a crime. On April 22, 2021, the High Court passed an order in his favour.
“The high court’s ruling, it was feared, might allow most of the accused to get released on bail. And it would complicate the prosecution of the case enormously, likely forcing the suspects to be tried individually rather than in a single trial, which would almost certainly cause the whole case to fall apart,” he writes.
At the time, the BJP state government had 90 days to file an appeal in the Supreme Court, but it simply missed the deadline, prompting Kavitha Lankesh, Gauri’s sister, to approach the apex court. The Supreme Court stayed the Karnataka High Court’s order and on October 21, 2021, ruled in favour of the prosecution, saying the HC had “clearly exceeded its jurisdiction in quashing the chargesheet”, Rollo writes.
Rollo said during the discussion, “It’s such a bureaucratic way of slowing things down. They didn’t have to come out overtly and shut down the trial. They could simply fail to file some paperwork.” He said that exposing the details of how delays in trials occur can be considered “boring”. “It’s not convincing, and it’s difficult to explain. But the end result is that the trial is much slower.”
He added that there are many examples of delays in the judicial and the investigative processes. This leads people to assume, “‘This is the system as it’s supposed to be. It’s working in her case. It’s just very slow.’ But the system is fundamentally broken. The system working as it is supposed to does not result in justice.”
In his book, Rollo cites examples of delays even after the charges were framed. The trial, which was originally scheduled to start on December 6, 2021, was postponed. Finally, the trial started six months later, on July 4, 2022.
During the panel discussion, Shivasundar, who has attended nearly every day of the trial, pointed out a “peculiar” reason for the delay after the trial began—“judicial non-cooperation”.
While the BJP government had deliberately delayed the trial between 2018 and 2022 when it was in power, he said that once the trial began, responsibility lay with the judiciary.
Shivasundar explained that judicial authorities only allot between three to five days each month for the trial. They also allotted a judge who had to handle administrative responsibilities alongside court hearings. “The judge cannot manage. It’s not personally possible. They could have allotted a separate judge for the case,” he said.
Referring to the demand for a special court to ensure a speedy trial, he said that ultimately Kavita had to approach the state government. The Law Department duly forwarded her application to the judiciary and showed her the response, he said.
“The judiciary responded, saying it is not possible to have a speedy trial and constitute a special court. This is judicial non-cooperation. Why judicial non-cooperation? When you see the judgements in the Umar Khalid case, etc., there are political and ideological reasons (for such non-cooperation because) there are speedy courts and special courts,” Shivasundar said.
Current status
The prosecution case comprises proving not just that the 18 accused murdered Gauri but also that they were part of an organised syndicate under the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act.
According to the chargesheet, the 18 accused allegedly planned the murder for over a year, starting in June 2016, when a few of them met at a house in Belagavi to hatch the plot.
It was after this that they began planning the logistics. Amol Kale, considered as the ringleader, allegedly assigned specific tasks to individual members of the group, including arranging a motorcycle, finding Gauri’s office address, surveilling her to learn her routine, finding three rented accommodations in Bengaluru, organising arms training and target practice in Belagavi, procuring live bullets and weapons, and procuring mobile phones and SIM cards.
For over a year, the 18 accused travelled to multiple locations all over Karnataka in Belagavi, Davangere, Dakshina Kannada, Vijayanagara, Bengaluru, Kodagu and even Mandya districts.
Police have recovered evidence from many of these locations, including bullets from the target practice in Belagavi, DNA from hairs and toothbrushes found in houses they rented out, and CCTV footage captured from outside Gauri’s house.
The prosecution had originally listed 530 witnesses. However, it eventually dropped over a hundred witnesses. So far, 193 witnesses have testified, and about 80 more are yet to do so.
Most of those who have testified so far are private witnesses. These include people whom the police have roped in to corroborate the logistical aspects of the assassination, such as owners of the houses which the accused rented, and the mahazar witnesses.
A mahazar is a document that the police prepare when carrying out search or seizure operations. Mahazar witnesses, either government officials or private individuals, are people that the police bring in to stand witness to their findings.
So far, three witnesses have turned hostile. The police have initiated perjury proceedings against one witness from Kodagu district who had testified about accused Rajesh Bangera’s alleged role in the murder. Rajesh Bangera and Bharat Kurane procured live bullets for the weapons training. Bangera also acted as a weapons trainer along with accused Amit Degwekar. It was Bangera who trained Parashuram Waghmore, who allegedly shot Gauri, and Ganesh Miskin, who rode the bike carrying him and Waghmore to Gauri’s house.
While the forensic experts who analysed the medical evidence, such as DNA, have already testified, crucial expert witnesses who analysed the other scientific evidence, including CCTV footage and ballistics, are still under examination or are yet to be summoned.
In June this year, a witness in the case complained to the court that he had received threats. The police have not filed an FIR.
All of the 17 who were arrested secured bail between December 2023 and January 2025. The 18th accused, Vikas Patil, is still at large.
Parashuram Waghmare and another accused, Manohar Yadve, were felicitated by Sangh Parivar and Shri Rama Sene activists in Vijayapura in October 2024, after they were released on bail.
This reporting is made possible with support from Report for the World, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project.
