The Supreme Court Friday termed "serious" the incidents of judges being threatened and asked the states to file status reports on the security they are providing to the judicial officers.
A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Surya Kant also issued notice to the CBI which has taken over the investigation into the recent incident of alleged mowing down of a judge at Dhanbad.
The apex court was informed by the counsel appearing for Jharkhand that the probe into the July 28 incident has been handed over to the CBI.
The bench told Attorney General K K Venugopal that there are several cases, which involve gangsters and high-profile persons and there are instances of judges getting threats or abusive messages.
"There is no freedom to the judges to even file a complaint," the bench said, adding that police or the CBI is not helping the judiciary if such complaints are filed.
"The CBI has not changed its attitude. When Judges complain to the CBI, Intelligence Bureau on threats, they do not respond. Investigating agencies do not help at all and I am making this statement with some sense of responsibility," CJI Ramana was quoted as saying by ndtv.com.
"We will hear the Jharkhand matter on Monday (August 9). We are issuing notice to the CBI," the bench said.
In wake of the Dhanbad incident, the top court has taken suo motu cognizance on the issue of safeguarding courts and protecting judges.
A 20-member team has also been set by the CBI to probe the matter. It has left for Dhanbad, officials said, adding that it will be followed by a Central Forensic Science Laboratory team.
District and Sessions Judge-8 of Dhanbad court, Uttam Anand, was out on a morning walk on Wednesday when he was killed by an auto-rickshaw at Randhir Verma Chowk near the district court in the Sadar police station area, stepping up investigations into his death that has led to a nationwide outrage among the legal fraternity which believes he was murdered.
Judge Anand, a Hazaribagh native posted in Dhanbad six months ago, had been handling several cases of mafia killings in Dhanbad city. He had denied bail to Ravi Thakur and Anand Verma, suspected shooters who have been linked to alleged Uttar Pradesh gangsters Abhinav Singh and Aman Singh.
Even though Jharkhand police had constituted an 11-member special investigation team (SIT) to probe the incident, chief minister Hemant Soren recommended a CBI probe on July 31, a day after the slain judge’s family members met him in Ranchi.
The central probe agency had informed the Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday that it has received the state government's letter to take over the probe a day earlier.
The bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad had directed the CBI to initiate a probe at the earliest. It had also directed the government to hand over all the documents of the case to the CBI.
