Patna: While acquitting five convicts serving life imprisonment in connection with an alleged murder of a junior engineer in Sheikhpura district, the Patna high court on Monday slammed a judicial officer for adopting improper procedures and relying on incorrect interpretations of law for awarding such punishment.The high court, while expressing astonishment on legal knowledge of the judicial officer who was posted as First Additional Session Judge of Sheikhpura, also ordered to seize his power of conducting criminal trial. It further directed placing the judicial officer for special training of laws related to crimes and punishments.A division of Justices Bibek Chaudhuri and Chandra Shekhar Jha, while allowing a batch of five criminal appeals filed by Sunil Kumar and four other convicts, delivered the judgment.On Jan 17, 2017, five appellants—Sunil Kumar, Balmukund Yadav, Raju Kumar, Narendra Kumar Raju, Dharmendra Paswan and Nandan Yadav—were arrested for allegedly killing one Ujjwal Rai, a junior engineer posted in execution of MGNREGA scheme. The FIR was lodged by a police personnel at Sheikhpura police station.The appellants faced trial and on July 22, 2019, the then court of First Additional Sessions Judge, Sheikhpura, while holding them guilty of the murder, awarded life sentence to them.The two judges held that the judicial officer held the appellants guilty on such evidence which are termed “inadmissible” by the law of evidence.The court lauded the assistance of defence lawyer Pratik Mishra and senior counsel Rajesh Singh for pointing gross legal violations committed by the judicial officer.
