A Bengaluru court has granted bail to the last of the 17 accused facing trial in the Gauri Lankesh murder case.
Principal city civil and sessions judge B. Muralidhara Pai granted bail to Sharad Bhausaheb Kalaskar on Wednesday after observing that he had been behind bars since 2018 and the trial was not expected to conclude anytime soon.
The court also observed that Kalaskar had the right to get bail on the grounds of parity with the other co-accused. One of the accused in the case is on the run.
Opposing the bail, the prosecution told the court that Kalaskar was a repeat offender and there were chances of him committing another crime. But the judge said that the Supreme Court had in several rulings held that an accused had a fundamental right to a speedy trial to protect his liberty.
Fifty-five-year-old Lankesh, the editor of weekly Kannada tabloid Lankesh Patrike and a vocal critic of Right-wing politics, was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru on September 5, 2017.
In October last year, a sessions court had granted bail to eight people accused in the case. Two of the accused were given a rousing reception by a group of Right-wing organisations upon their arrival in their hometown.