Supreme Court rejects all pleas for probe into Loya death

New Delhi: Calling them frivolous and “bereft of any truth”, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected pleas seeking an independent inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of Mumbai judge Brijgopal Harikishan Loya in 2014, around the time when he was hearing the Sohrabuddin “fake” encounter case that involved BJP chief Amit Shah as a suspect.

Holding that there is enough evidence to suggest that Loya died of natural causes, the top court took exception to the attempt by some petitioners to “politicise the case and scandalise the judiciary”.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, slammed attempts where “political rivalry is brought to court to malign judiciary”.

Rejecting a batch of pleas, including those filed by Congress leader Tehseen Poonawala and Maharashtra-based journalist B.S. Lone, seeking an independent probe into Loya’s death, the bench said, “We have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no merit in the writ petitions. There is no reason for the court to doubt the clear and consistent statements of the four judicial officers (who were with Loya the time of death).”

Loya died allegedly of cardiac arrest on December 1, 2014, in Nagpur where he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague’s daughter. The judge who took over the Sohrabuddin encounter case discharged Mr Shah later.

The top court took umbrage at senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who, while arguing for some of the petitioners, had sought to cross-examine the four Maharashtra judges who had accompanied Loya to the hospital.

The bench, which also included Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chan-drachud, said that the conduct of Maharashtra jud-ges — Shrikant Kulkarni, S.M. Modak, V.C. Barde and Roopesh Rathi — cannot be questioned and there was no reason for this court to doubt the veracity of their statements. Attempts were made to scandalise judiciary by levelling serious allegations against judicial officers and judges of the Bombay high court, it said.

Advocates of the petitioners launched a frontal attack on the judiciary by egging the Supreme Court to disbelieve the judicial officers who accompanied Loya to Nagpur and stayed with him at a guest house and said that the Loya died of a heart attack, the bench said.

Writing the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said, “There is no basis whatsoever to make any imputation against the four officers of the state judiciary. They were present with judge Loya at Nagpur to attend a wedding in the family of a colleague. The statements contain matters of detail, which would be known to those who were present with judge Loya. They have a ring of truth. They had nothing to conceal nor an axe to grind. To attribute motives to his colleagues who were with him and took immediate steps to shift him to a hospital nearby is absurd, if not motivated.”

“When there is very little proof that they are conspirators in a murder, the court must stand by the statements of the judicial officers. The judges of the district judiciary are vulnerable to wanton attacks on their independence. This court would be failing in its duty if it were not to stand by them,” said the bench.

Referring to senior counsel Mr Dave’s argument to the extent of insinuating that one individual (BJP president Amit Shah) is controlling the entire judiciary in Maharashtra and elsewhere, the bench said such allegations have the propensity of endangering the credibility of other institutions and undermining public faith in democracy and the rule of law.

“Political rivalries have to be resolved in the great hall of democracy when the electorate votes its representatives in and out of office. Repeatedly, counsel for the petitioners and interveners have attempted to inform the court that they have no personal agenda and that they have instituted these proceedings to protect judicial independence. But as the submissions have evolved, it has become clear that the petition is a veiled attempt to launch a frontal attack on the independence of the judiciary and to dilute the credibility of judicial institutions,” the bench said.

Earlier, the allocation of the petitions seeking  independent probe into the death of Loya caused a storm in the Supreme Court when the allocation of this case to a bench led by Justice Arun Mishra triggered an unprecedented press conference on January 12 by four most senior judges of the apex court, who claimed cases were being “selectively” assigned to certain benches.