Supreme Court pulls up Karnataka HC over bail to actor Darshan, reserves order in Renukaswamy murder case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday came down heavily upon the Karnataka High Court over the bail to Kannada film actor Darshan in the Renukaswamy murder case, saying the manner in which the order was pronounced, it looked like this was a case of acquittal.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan also put the High Court on docks for questioning the grounds of arrest in the murder case in its order passed on December 13, 2024.

"What is troubling is reasoning given especially saying the grounds of arrest were not mentioned in a case of murder," the bench wondered, finding it prima facie perverse exercise of power.

The court reserved its order on the Karnataka government’s petition challenging the bail granted by the High Court to actor Darshan and other accused.

The court asked the lawyers for the parties to file their written submissions within a week.

During the hearing, the bench sought to know if the state had any evidence to corroborate the statement of two eyewitnesses.

Raising serious concerns about the manner in which the High Court exercised discretion in granting bail to the accused persons, the bench said it had given a judgement of acquittal in favour of the accused.

“The manner in which the High Court has dictated the order, very sorry to say... does the High Court dictate the same type of orders in all bail applications,” the the bench asked.

“What is troubling us is the approach of the High Court, look at the manner in which bail application is dealt with and in the last, he (judge) says grounds of arrest not assigned in Section 302 IPC matter. That is the understanding of the learned judge? And that too from the High Court? We can understand a session judge committing such mistakes. A High Court judge committing such a mistake,” the bench wondered.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, advocates D L Chidananda and Anil C Nishani argued for the state government.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for Darshan sought to defend the High Court's order, contending its findings being only preliminary would not bind the trial court. He contended the statements of two eye witnesses could not be relied upon due to delay in recording their statements.

On July 17, 2025, the Supreme Court expressed its reservation over the High Court granting bail to Kannada actor Darshan in the Renukaswamy murder case and said it was “not at all convinced” by the manner in which the high court exercised its discretion.

Darshan, a 47-year-old Kannada actor, was arrested on June 11, 2024 in connection with the murder of 33-year-old Renukaswamy, a native of Chitradurga.

The victim’s body was discovered near a stormwater drain in Bengaluru on June 9, 2024.

According to the police, Renukaswamy had allegedly sent obscene messages to Darshan’s associate, Pavithra Gowda, which enraged the actor.

Police investigation led to the arrest of actor Darshan, his close friend Pavithra Gowda and 15 other associates.

The Bengaluru police also filed a charge sheet on September 3 naming Pavithra as accused number 1 and Darshan as the accused number 2. Police claimed that Renukaswamy's act of sending offensive messages to Pavithra was the motive of the offence.

The others named in the charge sheet were Pawan K, 29; Raghavendra, 43; Nandish, 28; Jagadish, 36; Anukumar, 25; Ravi Shankar, 32; Dhanraj D, 27; Vinay V, 38; Nagaraju, 41; Laxman, 54; Deepak, 39; Pradosh, 40; Karthik, 27; Keshavamurthy, 27, and Nikhil Nayak, 21.

The actor was first granted interim bail on medical grounds on October 30, 2024.

All the 17 accused are currently out on bail.