New Delhi, April 7 (IANS): The Delhi High Court on Monday granted bail to an accused serving life imprisonment for assassinating then railway minister L.N. Mishra in 1975.
A division bench of Justice G.S. Sistani and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal granted bail to Ranjan Dwivedi, an advocate, and asked him to furnish a bail bond of Rs.50,000 with two sureties of a like amount.
It asked Dwivedi not to leave Delhi while on bail.
On December 8 last year, a Delhi court had sentenced four followers of Hindu sect Anand Marg to life imprisonment in the nearly 40-year-old case, after convicting them for criminal conspiracy and murder
The convicts - Gopalji (73), Dwivedi (66), Santoshanand Avadhuta (75) and Sudevananda Avadhuta (79) - had challenged the verdict in the high court and also sought bail.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has alleged that Anand Marg followers carried out the attack on Mishra to put pressure on the central government to release one of the group's leaders.
Mishra had gone to Samastipur Jan 2, 1975 to inaugurate the Samastipur-Muzaffarpur broad gauge railway line. A bomb explosion on the dais seriously injured him.
He was rushed to the railway hospital at Danapur where he died the next day.
Two others died in the explosion while 25 others, including Mishra's brother Jagannath Mishra, were injured.