3 min readPatnaUpdated: Mar 28, 2026 05:43 PM IST
After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently submitted its status report on the 1975 LN Mishra assassination case — recommending against a re-investigation — all eyes are now on the Delhi High Court.
The court is scheduled to hear the family’s counter-arguments on May 18 before taking a final call on whether to order a re-investigation or close the matter, which has lingered for over 51 years. Mishra was Union railway minister when he was assassinated in Samastipur in January 1975. A powerful Congress leader, he was also the elder brother of former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra.
On March 25, the CBI, which led the original probe, submitted its status report before the Delhi High Court’s Division Bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh and Justice Madhu Jain. The court noted: “It is submitted on behalf of the CBI that the CBI does not support the prayer for re-investigation. The status report of the CBI is taken on record. The Appellants as also the family members of the victim are free to make their submissions in respect thereof…. On behalf of the family members of the victim, the contents of the status report filed by the CBI are objected to”.
Vaibhav Mishra, counsel and grandson of LN Mishra, told The Indian Express: “Our arguments will be drawn heavily from the Justice V.M. Tarkunde Report (1979), the Bihar Police Report (1978), and initial confession statements made before the Magistrate in Samastipur, which revealed major political names involved in the assassination. We are also relying on an Indian Express investigation.”
Mishra added that the report ‘Who Killed L.N. Mishra? An Indian Express Investigation’ by Arun Shourie in 1979, offers a strong counter-argument, noting that “the combined findings of the above contravene what the CBI had found.”
The matter is being heard by the Delhi High Court following a plea by Vaibhav Mishra, who has expressed dissatisfaction with the CBI probe and the subsequent 2014 judgment in which four Anandamargis were convicted.
In February this year, the Delhi High Court directed the CBI to submit a detailed affidavit on the plea to re-open the five-decade-old case, specifying that the status report be filed by an officer not below the rank of Joint Director.
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LN Mishra was killed along with MLC Surya Narayan Jha and railway clerk Ram Kishore Prasad in the 1975 grenade attack. While the CBI probe led to the conviction of four Ananda Margis in 2014, Vaibhav Mishra argued that they were framed and that a larger conspiracy was at play. Two reports — Tarkunde and Sahai — point to a deep-rooted conspiracy that the CBI has yet to address, prompting calls for a fresh probe.
Additionally, former Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey has filed an application in the Delhi High Court seeking re-opening of the case.
