PolicyCourts
Assam to challenge bail for two accused in Zubeen Garg death case in Supreme Court
The CID will file appeals against the Gauhati High Court's orders freeing band member Amritprava Mahanta and the singer's cousin Sandipan Garg as soon as the court reopens, officials said.
Key points
- Assam will file special leave petitions against bail for two of the seven accused.
- The Advocate General said he found 'some discrepancies' in Amritprava Mahanta's bail order.
- The CID says 134 witnesses have been examined and none has turned hostile.
The Assam government will ask the Supreme Court to cancel the bail granted to two of the seven people accused in the death of singer Zubeen Garg, officials said on Sunday.
The state’s Criminal Investigation Department will file special leave petitions against the Gauhati High Court’s orders freeing Amritprava Mahanta, a singer and member of Garg’s band, and Sandipan Garg, his cousin and a suspended Assam Police deputy superintendent, as soon as the top court reopens after its holidays.
“The honourable Gauhati High Court has granted bail to two accused in case no. 18/25,” Munna Prasad Gupta, Special DGP of the CID, told a press conference in Guwahati. “Court holidays are on. And as soon as it reopens, we will file it.” He declined to comment on the bail orders themselves.
‘Some discrepancies’
Advocate General Devajit Saikia said he had found “some discrepancies” in Mahanta’s bail order and had advised the home department to challenge it. The trial was at a sensitive stage with day-to-day hearings, he said, and bail now could create difficulties. The state will also seek to have some observations in the order struck out.
The detailed order on Sandipan Garg’s bail was not yet available, he said, and the state would file a petition if it found discrepancies there too.
The High Court granted Mahanta bail on 9 October and Sandipan Garg on 16 October; lower courts had earlier turned both down. Mahanta has been released, while Sandipan Garg was awaiting the execution of his order.
Mr Gupta said 134 witnesses had been examined so far. “No witness has turned hostile,” he said.
The wider case
Garg died on 19 September 2025 while swimming in the sea in Singapore, where he had gone for the North East India Festival. Singapore police found no evidence of foul play, but Assam authorities say those findings do not affect their case. A CID special investigation team, set up after more than 60 FIRs were filed across the state, charged seven people in December 2025, four of them with murder.
Ratul Bora, the Morigaon lawyer who filed the first police complaint after the singer’s death, said on Saturday that he too would go to the Supreme Court against the bail orders.