Charges were framed against auto driver Lakhan Verma and his accomplice Rahul Verma in connection with Judge Uttam Anand Murder case of Dhanbad today in the court of Additional District and Session judge III of Dhanbad, under section 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 34 (Common Intention) of Indian Penal Code.

The next date of hearing of the case in the court has been fixed on February 22. Notably, the CBI earlier filed a charge sheet against the two accused in Dhanbad court on October 20 in the same sections.

In the charge sheet CBI claimed that Rahul is a professional thief who keeps looking for vulnerable targets and he along with his accomplice Lakhan Verma was looking for a chance to execute the plan. The charge sheet however didn’t elaborate about the motive behind the murder.

Earlier on January 28 during the periodic hearing of the case in Jharkhand High Court, the court bench of chief justice Raviranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad pulled up CBI for conducting the brain fingerprinting test of the two accused twice at the interval of four months, which gave contradictory results to each other.

The court also asked the investigating agency to show its internal manuals or rules of investigation which show that there is any provision to conduct the Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature profiling twice if the accused during the first profiling showed intentions to kill in the first.

The CBI, however changed its investigating team in the case and instead of Additional SP, Vijay Kumar Shukla of CBI 1 of Delhi which was leading the probe ever since the registration of FIR in case by CBI on August 4, the team led by SP, Vikas Kumar of CBI -2 of Delhi is leading the probe at present.

The new team after taking over the charge of the probe on January 22 carried out a site inspection of the alleged murder near Randhir Verma Chowk on January 26.

Meanwhile, in a related development CBI during the last week also sought permission from the Dhanbad court to carry out questioning of the two accused lodged in Dhanbad jail after obtaining permission the CBI team carried out questioning of the duo in Dhanbad divisional Jail between January 29 to January 31.

Notably, Judge Uttam Anand was killed on July 28 last year at around 5.08 am when he was on a morning walk trip and was hit by a moving auto rickshaw near his house.