The Supreme Court on Monday said the Jharkhand High Court Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan will monitor CBI probe into the alleged murder of Dhanbad district court judge Uttam Anand, and directed the CBI to submit weekly progress report weekly with the High Court.
The Bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices Vineet Saran and Surya Kant that passed the order also observed that the report submitted by the CBI on the alleged murder of the judicial official does not indicate anything on motive or reason behind the crime.
“There is nothing in the sealed cover,” CJI told Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta after going through the status report of the case submitted by the CBI.
On this the Solicitor General informed that the CBI in the sealed cover report has reported whatever development so far has taken place after the agency started investigation.
“This is not the issue that we want. The court wants something concrete. The CBI has not indicated anything about the motive or reason behind the crime,” the CJI said.
The Solicitor General told the court that two persons, the driver of the auto-rickshaw and his associate who are accused of hitting the judge are in custody. The Solicitor General said that he is not in a position to update the court anything further about the investigation as the interrogation of the accused is going on.
The judge was knocked by an auto rickshaw on the morning of July 28 during his morning walk. The incident had shocked the judiciary and the Bar across the country as even the Supreme Court took cognizance of the death of this young and upright judicial official.
The Jharkhand government recommended a CBI probe of the case and the CBI lodged an FIR and took over the case.
During the hearing the court directed that the Dhanbad judicial official death case be tagged along with another writ petition filed before the Apex Court in 2019 related to security of judicial officials. In this case notice has already been issued to States and Union of India.