Ranchi, Sept.23: Death of Dhanbad judge Uttam Anand by an auto rickshaw push has downed the morale of judicial officers, observed the high court while monitoring the CBI probe in the death case.
The verbal observation was made in the virtual presence of CBI joint director, who was appearing through video conferencing before the division bench of chief justice Ravi Ranjan and justice Sujeet Narayan Prasad on getting the direction from the court.
The high court while informing about lowering the morale of judicial officers also said that it will not be good for the judicial system if the case is not solved soon. The court went on observing that it was for the first time a judge died in this way.
Earlier CBI joint director, informing about the development in probe said that CBI is trying to ascertain whether push by auto rickshaw was an accident or intentional.
On July 28 this year judge Uttam Anand died after an unidentified auto rickshaw hit him coming from the backside when he was on morning walk outside Magistrate Colony near Randhir Verma Chowk.
CCTV 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 incident. CCTV footage shows that the vehicle changed lanes and hit the judge going extreme left.
Legal fraternity took strong exception to the incident and suspected it a case of attack on the judicial system. The High Court and Supreme Court both took serious note on the matter. The High Court started monitoring the case. Sensing the gravity of the situation, state police constituted an SIT.
Police swung into action and arrested the driver of the auto rickshaw and seized his vehicle. Driver admitted the crime saying he was drunk. SIT remained busy collecting evidence to ascertain the genuineness of the claim.
Help of a technical team was taken and a regular raid started in Dhanbad to leave no stone unturned to ascertain the circumstance under which a judge handling sensitive cases died while walking without a bodyguard.
On August 3, Jharkhand High Court asked CBI to take up the death case suspecting it a case of murder. Since then the probe is on. However, the high court is not satisfied with the progress made in the probe so far.
