Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh has drawn attention after a fast-track court judge handed down death sentences to 22 people within just four months.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravikumar Diwakar, posted at the Muzaffarnagar fast-track court, delivered verdicts in 10 murder cases during this period and awarded capital punishment to 22 accused. The string of maximum penalties reportedly left legal observers and those convicted taken aback.
Diwakar, 46, had earlier come into the spotlight in 2022 after ordering a video survey at the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. He began his judicial career in 2009 as an additional civil judge in Azamgarh, was promoted as a judge in Sultanpur in 2015, and was posted to the Muzaffarnagar fast-track court in 2025.
Amid the debate around his sentencing pattern, around 100 murder cases that were to be heard by him have been transferred to the court of District and Sessions Judge Virendra Kumar Singh.
District Bar Association president Pramod Tyagi said the 100 pending murder cases in the fast-track court are ones that could attract either the death penalty or life imprisonment, and that repeated death sentences have created a sense of fear among lawyers and petitioners.
