The Supreme Court on Thursday said that the approach of the Karnataka High Court in granting bail to actor Darshan Thoogudeepa in the Renukaswamy murder case was “troubling”, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan made the remarks while reserving its judgement on a special leave petition filed by the Karnataka government seeking that the bail granted to Thoogudeepa be cancelled.

On October 30, the High Court granted interim bail to Thoogudeepa for six weeks to undergo surgery. It also granted regular bail to Thoogudeepa, Gowda and five other persons accused on December 13.

The Karnataka government moved the Supreme Court challenging the bail order in January.

On July 17, the Supreme Court said it was “not convinced” by the High Court’s decision to grant bail to Thoogudeepa in the case. The bench also asked the actor’s lawyers to provide “good reason” why the Supreme Court should not interfere with the High Court’s decision.

At the hearing on Thursday, the Supreme Court asked advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing the Karnataka government, to take the bench through the first information report filed in the murder case and the statements recorded, including that of two eyewitnesses, Live Law reported.

The advocate submitted closed-circuit television footage and other reports to substantiate his arguments.

Advocate Siddharth Dave, representing Thoogudeepa, said that the High Court had found the statements of the two eyewitnesses to be contradictory in nature. He added that one of their statements was also recorded after 12 days.

There was no intrinsic evidence in the chargesheet to support the testimonies of the two eyewitnesses, he added.

However, the Supreme Court orally said that it was more concerned about the manner in which the High Court dealt with the actor’s petition for bail, further asking if it follows the same approach in all such applications.

The judge said: “The manner in which the High Court has dictated the order, very sorry to say, but does the High Court dictate same type of orders in all bail applications? What is troubling us is the approach of the High Court.”

The bench said that what was “troubling” was the reasoning given, “especially saying ‘grounds of arrest were not furnished’ for a murder case”, NDTV reported. “We can understand a session judge committing such mistakes,” it added. “A High Court judge committing such a mistake?”

Thoogudeepa was arrested on June 11 in connection with the murder of a 33-year-old man named Renukaswamy, who was his fan.

Renukaswamy had allegedly been sending abusive messages to Thoogudeepa’s partner, Pavithra Gowda. His body was found in a drain in Bengaluru’s Summanahalli area on June 9.

A chargesheet was filed days after a Bengaluru court on August 27 allowed the police to shift Thoogudeepa to the Ballari district prison from Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Bengaluru as reports emerged that he was being given preferential treatment in custody.

Nine central jail officials in Bengaluru were suspended after a photograph showing Thoogudeepa sitting on a prison lawn in the company of three other inmates was widely shared on social media.