CBI court Judge Rajinikanth Pathak on July 28 convicted autorickshaw driver Lakhan Verma and his aide Rahul Verma for the murder of 49-year-old Additional Sessions Judge Uttam Anand. The sentence was announced on Saturday.
Besides imprisonment till death, the bench imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on both the convicts under section 302 (murder) of the IPC.
The CBI judge sentenced the duo to seven years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 each under section 201 of the IPC (missing evidence of offence, giving false information to save offender).
Both the sentences will run concurrently.
Anand was hit by a heavy autorickshaw at Randhir Verma Chowk near the district court on July 28 last year when he was on his morning walk around 5.30 am. He died on the same day.
Terming the murder of the judge as the rarest of the rarest crime, CBI counsel Amit Jindal demanded death penalty for both. He also said that he committed the crime intentionally.
Defense lawyer Kumar Bimelendu told reporters that the judge’s death was accidental and that the CBI had “fabricated the theory of murder”. The decision will be challenged in the High Court.
The trial in the murder case began in February. The court had recorded the statements of 58 witnesses during the hearing.
CCTV camera footage shows that the judge was jogging on one side of a very wide road at Randhir Verma Chowk in Dhanbad when the three-wheeler came towards him, hit him from behind and fled the spot.
Initially an SIT was formed to probe the case, but later the Jharkhand government handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
(with inputs from agencies)