The Supreme Court on Wednesday began the final hearing on appeals challenging the acquittal of former Member of Parliament Surajbhan Singh and eight others, including ex-MLA Vijay Kumar Shukla, also known as Munna Shukla, in the 1998 murder case of former Bihar minister Brij Bihari Prasad.
The bench, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar, and R. Mahadevan, started hearing the pleas filed by former BJP MP Rama Devi, who is also the widow of Brij Bihari Prasad, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The appeals contest a 2014 Patna High Court ruling that acquitted the accused due to a lack of evidence.
Senior advocate Siddharth Aggarwal, representing Rama Devi, argued that the high court had erred in acquitting the accused. The CBI, which was tasked with investigating the case by the state government, was represented by senior advocate Sonia Mathur. Mathur pointed to landline calls made from Surajbhan Singh’s residence in Mokama to other accused in the case, suggesting a conspiracy.
However, the bench noted that, according to records and the high court judgment, Surajbhan Singh was in Beur jail on the day of the incident, June 13, 1998, making it challenging to substantiate the conspiracy charge against him.
Senior advocate R. Basant, along with other defense counsels, argued in favor of the high court’s decision to acquit the accused.
The hearing remained inconclusive and is scheduled to continue on Thursday, with Justice Khanna indicating that the bench may announce its decision in open court.
The Patna High Court, in its July 24, 2014 judgment, had acquitted Surajbhan Singh, Mukesh Singh, Lallan Singh, Mantu Tiwari, Captain Sunil Singh, Ram Niranjan Choudhary, Shashi Kumar Rai, Vijay Kumar Shukla alias Munna Shukla, and Rajan Tiwari, citing a lack of evidence. This overturned the trial court’s 2009 order, which had convicted them and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, on June 13, 1998, multiple armed men shot and killed Brij Bihari Prasad, a leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, inside the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna, where he was receiving treatment while in judicial custody. The murder was allegedly a retaliation for the 1994 killing of Chhotan Shukla, Munna Shukla’s elder brother, which witnesses claimed was orchestrated by Prasad.
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Several of the accused, including Surajbhan Singh and Munna Shukla, were prominent political figures, with Singh serving as a former MP from the Lok Janshakti Party and Shukla as an ex-MLA from Janata Dal (United).
