Ranchi, Jul 14 (PTI) The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday upheld the life imprisonment of two convicts who were found guilty of murdering former Dhanbad judge Uttam Anand in 2021.
The two had appealed in the high court against a CBI court order sentencing them to life imprisonment. A division bench comprising Justices Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Pradeep Kumar Srivastava had reserved its order on April 22 and pronounced it on Tuesday.
“The enormity of the act of the appellants and the audacious nature of its execution has been an affront to the judiciary encapsulating serious concerns over the safety and security of the judicial officers. As we have discussed and observed above, based on the voluminous records of the case, the complicity and culpability of the appellants are palpable,” the order read.
Lakhan Kumar Verma and Rahul Kumar Verma were sentenced by the Special CBI Judge Dhanbad on August 6, 2022, to undergo a life term for the murder of Dhanbad district judge Uttam Anand.
Judge Anand was hit by an autorickshaw when he was out for a morning walk on July 28, 2021, at Randhir Verma Chowk near Dhanbad district court.
CCTV camera footage showed that he was jogging on one side of a fairly wide road when the three-wheeler, with two persons sitting on the front seat, veered towards him, hit him from behind and fled. He succumbed to his injuries in a hospital.
The high court had also taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and initiated a probe.
The probe was first initiated by the police, but with no breakthrough achieved, the investigation was handed over to the CBI on August 3, 2021.
The CBI arrested the two — Lakhan Verma and Rahul Verma — who were on the autorickshaw.
As many as 58 prosecution witnesses were examined before the lower court held the convicts guilty of murdering the judge. PTI CORR NAM NN
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