CBI told to probe assault angle in judge’s death
RANCHI: The Jharkhand High Court on Thursday directed the CBI to investigate whether additional district and session judge Uttam Anand’s death in a hit-and-run had an assault angle to it. The direction came based on a status report submitted by the premier agency.
The court said prima facie it appeared as though Uttam Anand was hit with something by the person sitting beside the driver. According to Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice S N Prasad, the postmortem report also indicated there was one-and-half-inch deep injury on the right side of his head, indicating a weapon assault as the side-view mirror could not reach the level of Anand’s head.
A CCTV footage showing an auto-rickshaw intentionally hitting the Judge from behind on July 28 on a deserted road had raised doubts over his death. Hours after the CCTV footage surfaced, the Jharkhand High Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter.
“Side mirror of the auto cannot reach up to the head; it cannot be considered a case of hit and run. The CBI must understand that some weapon has been used for killing the Judge. The postmortem report also revealed that head injury was the cause of death of Judge Uttam Anand, therefore, the CBI must investigate the case from this angle, otherwise the direction of the investigation might go to a wrong direction,” observed the Court.
The Court added that an investigation report related to the spot where the incident took place must also be submitted to clear doubts over whether it was a hit-and-run case or a murder. During hearing, the court played the CCTV footage of the incident twice before asking the CBI to collect evidence into that aspect also.