Judge Suspicious Death: SC becomes strict, CBI will have to submit investigation report to Jharkhand High Court every week
The Supreme Court on Monday heard the death of District Judge Uttam Anand in Jharkhand and directed the CBI to submit a weekly report to the Jharkhand High Court. The Supreme Court also said that the Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court will monitor the report of the inquiry submitted every week. On July 28 last month, Judge Uttam Anand died after colliding with a tempo during his morning walk. The murder angle in the case also came to light after seeing the CCTV footage.
Earlier, during the last hearing of the case, Chief Justice NV Raman had made a strong remark about the CBI and said that the agency does not help in the cases of judges’ complaints.
The investigation of the case has been handed over to the CBI and the Special Crime Branch-1 team of the investigating agency has reached Dhanbad. However, despite continuous interrogation of auto driver Lakhan Verma and his accomplice Rahul Verma, the CBI is yet to ascertain their motive behind the collision.
Lakhan and Rahul are also repeatedly telling the CBI that due to intoxication, the auto turned towards the person running on the roadside, due to which they collided. Earlier, both kept giving the same statement for five days to the SIT constituted on the orders of the state government. While seeking consent for other investigations of lie detection including brain mapping, both had also told that this incident happened due to being intoxicated. However, the CBI officials are not accepting his statement as the final truth.
The team is trying to get to the bottom of the incident with circumstantial and scientific evidence. A new angle is being sought in the case through the mobile CDRs of both, call dumps received from the spot, the results of forensic investigation, besides the continuous interrogation of the identified people. In fact, without intention, it will be difficult to prove this case as murder in the court. The motive will come to the fore only then the conspirators and other helpers (if there will be) will come out.
