A Bengaluru court on January 8 granted bail to Sharad Bhausaheb Kalaskar, one of the accused in the murder of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh. With this, all 17 accused persons facing trial in the case are now out on bail, except for Vikas Patil, who is absconding. Sharad Kalaskar was convicted in the murder of Narendra Dabholkar along with Sachin Andure.
The bail was granted by Principal City Civil and Sessions Judge Muralidhara Pai B, who cited Kalaskar’s prolonged detention since September 2018 and the improbability of the trial concluding soon. The court noted that prolonged custody violated Kalaskar’s right to a speedy trial, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
According to Bar and Bench, Kalaskar sought bail claiming his innocence and on the principle of parity, as most of his co-accused had already been released on bail. Opposing his plea, the prosecution argued that Kalaskar was a repeat offender with a prior conviction and posed a risk of reoffending if released.
"As on this day, all the accused facing trial in the case except the petitioner are on bail. As such, the petitioner is entitled to bail even on the ground of parity," the court observed.
The court said, “Undisputedly, the names of the witnesses in the case have been hidden from the accused persons by masking their details. As such, this Court does not find any chance of the petitioner attempting to tamper with the prosecution witnesses. Further, this Court has already examined 164 witnesses, and almost an equal number have been presented by the prosecution. Most of the remaining witnesses are police officials or officials from other departments who assisted during the investigation. In view of the same, this Court does not find any merit in the above contention of the prosecution.”
Accordingly, the court granted bail on the condition that Kalaskar executes a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh along with two sureties for the same amount.
In 2023, the Karnataka High Court granted bail to other accused on similar grounds. Mohan Nayak was the first accused to be granted bail by the High Court in December 2023, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court in 2024. Other accused, including Bharat Kurane, Srikanth Pangarkar, Amit Dighvekar, KT Naveen Kumar, and Suresh HL, were released in subsequent orders. In October 2023, the sessions court granted bail to accused Amol Kale, Rajesh D Bangera, Vasudev Suryawanshi, Rushikesh Devadekar, Parshuram Waghmore, Ganesh Miskin, Amith Ramachandra Baddi, and Manohar Dundeepa Yadave.
In November 2018, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case filed a 10,000-page chargesheet naming 18 persons involved in the murder of Gauri Lankesh. The men belonged to different outfits such as the Sanatan Sanstha, HJS, and smaller Hindutva outfits like ShivPratishthan Hindustan.
TNM has gone through the 10,000-page chargesheet in the Gauri Lankesh murder case and reported extensively on the case. Read our articles here
