A special CBI court in Dhanbad on Saturday sentenced two people to rigorous life imprisonment for the murder of Additional Sessions Judge Uttam Anand. The CBI court had convicted autorickshaw driver Lakhan Verma and his accomplice Rahul Verma guilty in the murder of Anand on July 28. The sentence came a year after the judge was knocked down on a deserted road in Dhanbad during a morning jog in an incident that was captured on CCTV.
Defence lawyer Kumar Bimelendu said, “The two accused had been convicted on July 28 and the quantum of sentence was delivered today. The judge did not term it a ‘rarest of rare case’ and instead gave them life imprisonment till end of life.”
CBI court judge Rajnikant Pathak had held Lakhan Verma and Rahul Verma guilty in the murder of Anand under IPC Sections 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, giving false information to protect offender) and 34 (common intention).
CBI additional public prosecutor Amit Jindal had said that the court found that both the accused were not intoxicated. The court also ruled that it was a case of intentional murder, Jindal maintained.
The murder case trial began in February and the court registered statements of 58 witnesses during the course of hearing.
The judge’s death sent shockwaves across the country as CCTV camera footage showed that Anand was jogging on one side of a fairly wide road at Randhir Verma Chowk in Dhanbad when the three-wheeler veered towards him, hit him from behind and fled the scene. He succumbed to injuries that morning.
As the case swept national headlines, an SIT was initially formed to probe the matter, but the Jharkhand government later handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Supreme Court also took suo motu cognizance of the “sad demise” of a judge and had sought a status report in the matter from Jharkhand’s chief secretary and the DGP.
Meanwhile, Advocate Kumar Bimelendu, while talking to media persons, had stated that the “CBI concocted murder theory”. He said Lakhan and Rahul would challenge the verdict in higher court.
(With inputs from PTI)
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