Supreme Court cancels actor Darshan's bail, says high court order was perverse

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday cancelled the bail for actor Darshan in the Renukaswamy murder case and said popularity cannot be a shield for impunity, nor influence, resources and social status be the basis for grant of bail.

Setting aside Karnataka high court's order granting bail to the actor, a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said evidence in the case indicates a pre-meditated and orchestrated crime, where the accused not only allegedly took the law into his own hands, but also engaged in systematic destruction of evidence.

It said the actor's antecedents, influence, jail misconduct, and the seriousness of the charges against him make him unfit for bail, and the order granting him bail was based on non-application of mind, perverse, and hence, legally unsustainable. The court allowed the plea of the state govt which had challenged the high court's order.