The chargesheet in the case was filed against the accused exactly a year after the incident. There are a total of 16 accused in the case and only Mishra is out on bail.
Special Judge (Gangster Act) Vikar Ahmed Ansari framed charges under Section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 429 (mischief by killing), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code against the accused. The court also framed charges against them under different sections of the Explosives Substances Act, as well as the Gangster Act. The accused have also been framed under the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Apart from Mishra, some of the other accused in the case were Rajesh Pilot, who was allegedly hired by the main accused to kill minister Nandi, Kripa Shankar Pandey, Rajesh Yadav, Manoj Pandey, Jitendra Pandey, Mahendra Mishra, Purshottam Dubey, Subhash Vishwakarma, Mohammad Rafiq and Jaishankar Vishwakarma. Dilip Mishra, a relative of Vijay Mishra, is also an accused in the case, besides others. Most of the accused were allegedly involved in providing logistical support, the police had said.
“The court has fixed December 20 as the next date of hearing. The case will now move to the next stage where witnesses would be examined,” said a prosecution officer.
After the filing of chargesheet, the legal process had dragged on as all the accused wanted a copy of the chargesheet translated in Hindi.
The bomb attack occurred on July 12, 2010, when Nandi, along with Vijay Pratap Singh, was coming out of his residence in Bahadurganj area of Allahabad at 10.30 a.m. The bomb, kept hidden in a moped, was detonated using a remote control device.
Nandi, Vijay Pratap, minis’er’s gunner Sanjay Singh, sanitation employee Shyam Babu, minis’er’s PRO Anuj Pandey and Pritam Singh and a BSP worker Rakesh Malviya were injured in the attack. Malviya died the same day.
Vijay Pratap succumbed to injuries in Army Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi nine days after the attack.
The prosecution has maintained that an old enmity between Nandi, who was then the institutional finance minister in the Mayawati government, and Vijay and Dilip Mishra had led to the incident.