RANCHI: The Jharkhand HC on Thursday took suo moto cognizance of the Dhanbad hit-and-run case that took place early in the morning on Wednesday and left the District and Additional Judge Uttam Anand dead.
The shocking incident was brought to the notice of the court on Thursday morning by Supreme Court Bar Association President Vikas Singh, who demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter. He was informed that the matter has already been taken up by the Jharkhand HC.
"The Jharkhand HC on Thursday took suo moto cognizance of the Dhanbad hit-and-run case in which District and Additional Judge Uttam Anand was killed. DGP Neeraj Sinha, who was connected online with the division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad, assured the court that the case will be solved very soon and the culprits will be put behind the bars," said Jharkhand HC Advocate Association Treasurer Dheeraj Kumar, who was also present online during the hearing.
The court agreed to the proposal given by the DGP to get the case investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a senior police official and said it has full confidence in the assurance given that investigations will be done professionally.
"If the court (however) feels that the investigations are not being done properly, the case may be handed over to CBI at any point of time," the Court stressed.
It also directed the police to find the kingpins involved in the case and said they must not stop at just arresting the auto driver involved in the incident and his aide.
The court, meanwhile, expressed its displeasure at the Dhanbad SSP changing his statements on the question of when the FIR was lodged in the case, saying that it creates a sense of suspicion over the entire incident.
The court went on to observe that the situation in Jharkhand has become worse than in Nagaland and Mizoram, where no such incidents have taken place so far.
"The CCTV footage clearly shows that it is not an accident, but it is a matter of investigation. It appears that the incident was executed only to demoralize judicial officers in the state," the court observed.
Earlier during the hearing, the Court observed that such incidents never took place even when Maoist incidents were at their peak in Jharkhand. This incident indicates that the law and order situation has completely deteriorated in the State and the morale of criminals is so high that they flinch from executing such a crime in broad daylight at a prime location in Dhanbad.
The President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Vikas Singh had also connected online during the hearing and informed the court that the matter has been raised before the CBI as the CCTV footage clearly indicates that it was done intentionally at the behest of someone else.
The CCTV footage had howed an autorickshaw without a number plate intentionally hitting Justice Uttam Anand, the additional district and sessions judge of Dhanbad, from behind on a deserted road while he was on his morning walk. The incident took place near the Golf Ground less than 500 meters from Uttam Anand's house at Judge Colony in Hirapur.