RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Aug.3: Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday asked the CBI to take up the death case of Dhanbad district and session judge Uttam Anand and begin the investigation soon. The court directive came after it heard the CBI lawyer who said that the agency received the recommendation letter from the State government yesterday.
The court observed that the CBI should register the FIR soon and directed the State government to hand over all the relevant papers to the agency.
Earlier, monitoring the progress of the investigation judge’s death case the court expressed its dissatisfaction and asked the state to submit a status report of the investigation being done by a special investigation team (SIT).
The court during the hearing observed how an FIR was registered at 12.45pm when the incident took place at 5.08am and the CCTV footage shows that the judge was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment from the spot.
“Is there any provision of registration of FIR after Fard Bayan,” the court, unhappy with the style of the police investigation, questioned the state being represented by advocate general (AG) Rajeev Ranjan.
Earlier AG Ranjan informed the court regarding the step taken by the state for proper investigation of the case. He said that the state has recommended a CBI probe into the death.
On July 28 judge Uttam Anand died after an auto-rickshaw hit him coming from the backside when he was on a morning walk outside Magistrate Colony near Randhir Verma Chowk.
The CCTV footage collected from the spot suggests that the driver of the vehicle intentionally hit the judge who was walking on the extreme left of the deserted road at the time of the incident. The CCTV footage shows that the vehicle changed lanes and hit the judge going extreme left.
The legal fraternity took strong exception to the incident and suspected it a case of an attack on the judicial system. The High Court and Supreme Court both took serious note of the matter. The High Court started monitoring the case. Sensing the gravity of the situation, the state police constituted an SIT.
Police swung into action and arrested the driver of the auto-rickshaw and seized his vehicle. The driver admitted the crime saying he was drunk. However, SIT is busy collecting evidence to ascertain the genuineness of the claim. The help of a technical team is also being taken and a regular raid is going on in Dhanbad to leave no stone unturned to ascertain the circumstance under which a judge handling sensitive cases died while walking without a bodyguard.
