The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the acquittal of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni in a 2000 murder case, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal said that it was not inclined to interfere with the concurrent findings of the Allahabad High Court and the trial court.

The case pertains to the murder of student leader Prabhat Gupta, who was shot dead near his house at Tikonia in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri district. Teni, along with three others, had been accused of the murder.

It was alleged that Gupta had a dispute with Teni regarding the Panchayat elections and hence, was shot dead by Teni and another accused Subhash.

In 2004, a trial court acquitted Teni saying that the prosecution had failed to establish the chain of events, reported Bar and Bench.

The Uttar Pradesh government challenged the acquittal in the High Court, saying that the trial court had ignored the testimony of the eyewitness. Gupta’s father Santosh Gupta had also filed a revision plea before the High Court.

However, the High Court said that it found the trial court’s order “to be a plausible and sustainable view, especially when the trial court had the advantage of seeing and assessing the demeanour of witnesses”.

“The evidence recorded in the present case has been appreciated in its correct perspective and the trial court has at no point of time missed the woods of the tree,” the High Court bench had said.