The Jharkhand High Court reprimanded the CBI for not properly investigating the Dhanbad district court judge murder case while rejecting the CBI theory that mobile theft could be a possible motive behind the murder of the judicial officer Uttam Anand.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad which is hearing the case directed the CBI to submit the report of all technical investigations related to this case. The matter was posted for hearing on January 21.
The High Court while hearing the case on Friday said that Uttam Anand was murdered as a part of a greater conspiracy that needed to be unearthed.
The court made an oral observation that it was hard to believe that a judicial officer can be murdered because of theft of a mobile phone or any other trivial matter. The court directed the CBI to submit reports of the narco test conducted on the two accused Lakhan Kumar Verma and Rahul Kumar Verma who were arrested right after the incident taking place on the morning of July 28 last year.
The High court on several occasions slammed the CBI for poor investigation and said that the CBI filed a stereotyped charge sheet.
The digital evidence clearly shows that judge Uttam Anand was jogging on the roadside at Randhir Verma Chowk in Dhanbad when the accused persons driving the auto-rickshaw hit him from behind, and fled away.
Dhanbad police booked them under IPC Sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), and 34 (common intention).
Later on, the CBI took over the case and it filed a charge sheet in a Dhanbad court on October 20.
In December last year, the CBI sought permission from the special CBI court of Dhanbad to once again conduct narco analysis, brain mapping, and polygraph tests on the accused. The CBI had said that it got some actionable clues about the mastermind behind the death of the judge hence it wanted a fresh test.