Supreme Court Issues Notice On Karnataka Police's Plea Against Actor Darshan's Bail In Renukaswamy Murder Case

The Supreme Court today(January 24) issued notice in a Special Leave Petition filed by the Karnataka State Government has filed a plea before the Supreme Court challenging the order of the Karnataka High Court granting bail to actor Darshan in the Renukaswamy Murder Case.Appearing for the State of Karnataka, Senior Advocate Siddarth Luthra at the outset submitted: "This is one of those disturbing matters where the High Court [of Karnataka] has completely white-washed the whole case. Mylord, please see the kind of torture this man was put to...It's quite disturbing. He is picked-up in daylight..."Luthra pressed that the co-accused in this case should not be allowed to take advantage of the findings. A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan stated that it would not stay the operation of the order as it would amount to cancellation of bail but nevertheless directed that reliance shall not be put on the findings of the Karnataka High Court.The Court ordered: "The State prays for the cancellation of bail. The High Court has delivered a lengthy judgment granting bail to some of the accused persons. The apprehension expressed today by the State is that other co-accused should not be permitted to take benefit of finding recorded by the High Court in the impugned order which is now a subject-matter of the challenge before us. Since State is praying for cancellation of bail, it would not be proper for us to stay the operation of order as otherwise it would amount to cancelling of bail. Yet, to protect the interest of prosecution, we may only clarify that if other co-accused prays on bail, the Court concerned shall not place reliance on the impugned order before us. However, if any bail application filed by any co-accused, it be decided on its own merit."As per the chargesheet, Darshan was involved in the killing of his 33-year-old 'fan' over sending obscene messages to actress Pavithra Gowda. Darshan had allegedly got the deceased abducted from Chitradurga and had him tortured for three days in a shed in Bengaluru in June 2024. The deceased later succumbed to the abuse, with his body thrown out in a drain as per police report.Accused Darshan, Pavitra, Anu Kumar, Lakshman M, V Vinay, Jagadeesh, Pradoosh S Rao and Nagaraju R had moved the high court seeking bail after the sessions court had rejected it. Earlier, the court had granted bail to Keshavamurthy. During the hearing, the Hgh Court on October 30 released Darshan on interim medical bail to undergo surgery.Case Details: THE STATE OF KARNATAKA v. SRI DARSHAN., SLP(Crl) No. 516-522/2025Click Here To Read/Download Order

Supreme Court Issues Notice On Karnataka Police's Plea Against Actor Darshan's Bail In Renukaswamy Murder Case

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

The Court clarified that the bail applications of the co-accused should not be decided relying on the bail granted to Darshan.

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