Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar has been moved out of the Muzaffarnagar fast-track criminal court and appointed additional principal judge of the Muzaffarnagar family court under an Allahabad High Court order, Particle News and Inshorts reported. Shiv Kumari has been named to take over the fast-track bench.
Source: Particle News
Diwakar handed down 23 death sentences across 11 cases in Muzaffarnagar between April and September this year, Inshorts reported, citing the transfer coverage. Earlier reporting credited him with 13 more death sentences from a previous posting in Bareilly, a combined figure of 36 reported by some outlets. A death sentence passed by a sessions court can be carried out only after confirmation by the High Court.
Source: Inshorts
His Muzaffarnagar tenure had already drawn attention in August, when the then district and sessions judge administratively recalled about 97 part-heard files from Diwakar's court. Diwakar later questioned, in a 35-page judgment in an NDPS case, whether hearings already under way can be withdrawn without recorded reasons, Particle News reported.
Bar and Bench had earlier reported Diwakar questioning the transfer of about 100 criminal cases from his court, writing that a large withdrawal of serious case files needs recorded legal grounds and cannot rest only on the sessions judge's power to transfer cases. Diwakar had first come to national attention in 2022, when, as a judge in Varanasi, he ordered a court-monitored videographic survey of the Gyanvapi complex.
Source: Bar and Bench