Death of judge: SIT formed, two arrested, HC to monitor probe

Dhanbad/Ranchi:  Police has arrested two culprits in connection with the death of Additional district and sessions judge Uttam Anand while on the other hand the Jharkhand High Court has decided itself to monitor the probe and has warned that incase of negligence the matter would be handed over to the CBI.

Jharkhand Police Spokesperson Amol V Homkar said that autorickshaw driver Lakhan Verma and his associate Rahul Verma have been arrested in the case. He said that Lakhan has accepted that he had hit the judge by his autorickshaw.

Meanwhile the police headquarters has formed a SIT to investigate the case which will be led by ADG Operations Sanjay Anand Latkar and also includes Bokaro DIG and Dhanbad SSP. The forensic team of Dhanbad Police and CID are also involved in the probe.

Dhanbad police on Wednesday night managed to recover the autorickshaw which was used to hit the judge from Giridih, later it had emerged that the vehicle was stolen on Tuesday and was used to hit the judge while he had gone for morning walk on Wednesday morning. After 90 minutes of the accident he was taken to the hospital by some youths but unfortunately the judge scummbed to his injuries around 9.30 AM in the morning.

The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday summoned the DGP and Dhanbad SSP over the killing of Additional District and Sessions Judge of Dhanbad Uttam Anand.

Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan expressed his anguish over delay in registration of fir and directed the DGP to ensure speedy action.

The court said that itself will be monitoring the probe and added that any moment if the court feels that negligence is being adopted in the probe then the case will be handed over to the CBI.

Commenting further the court said that recently a police officer had died, later a lawyer was killed and now a judge has died which indicates that law and order situation has become pathetic in the state.

Advocate General Rajeev Ranjan said that the state government was serious over the issue and the police was probing the incident with seriousness and an SIT has been formed which will be led by senior officer Sanjay Anand Latkar.

The family of the late judge have described the incident as murder and have demanded for a CBI probe into the incident.

The postmortem report  has said that the judge had died due to serious head injuries. Judge Uttam Anand was hearing cases involving some of the dreaded criminals involved in high profile cases. In two such cases he had awarded three convicts life imprisonment.

The killing of the judge was raised in the Supreme Court also with fotmed Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh requesting for a CBI probe. Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said that he had spoken with Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court Dr Ravi Ranjan and for the time being they should be allowed to handle the case.