Supreme Court Transfers Judge Loya’s Death Probe Case To Itself

The Supreme Court of India has transferred all cases related to the death of Judge Loya to itself and also barred any of the high courts from entertaining pleas on the matter.

The Government of Maharashtra today submitted the documents related to the death of CBI Special Court Judge BH Loya in the apex court during the hearing of a public interest litigation seeking independent investigations into the matter.

The court allowed the Bombay Lawyers Association, which had filed an intervention application in the matter, to participate and argue in the matter. Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, arguing on behalf of the association, said that the documents produced by the Maharashtra government are incomplete. The association is in possession of more documents related to the case, acquired through the Right to Information Act, Dave informed the three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra, and Justices DY Chandrachud and AM Khanwilkar.

Also Read: Petitioners Should Know Everything In Judge Loya’s Death, Supreme Court Says

The court called this case a “serious issue”, and asked all parties to cooperate and help the apex court look into this issue objectively.

This case was first heard by a bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar. That was the day four senior judges of the Supreme Court called an unprecedented press conference to publicly air their differences with the Chief Justice over what they called selectively assigning cases of national importance to the benches. When a reporter present at the press conference asked that if their protest was also related to the death of Judge Loya, Justice Gogoi said ‘Yes’, wire agency ANI had reported.

Judge Loya was hearing a matter involving the death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in a police encounter when Amit Shah—now the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—was the minister of state for home in Gujarat. Shah was exonerated by the judge who replaced Loya.

Dave also raised objections today regarding Senior Advocate Harish Salve’s appearance in the matter citing “conflict of interest”. The three-judge bench refused to grant Dave’s request to not allow Salve from participating in the proceedings, with Justice Chandrachud saying that it is up to individual lawyers to decide on appearing in cases. Salve appeared for Amit Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case.

The Government of Maharashtra also requested the court's direction that the documents submitted by them be shared only with lawyers concerned with the case. Both Dave and Supreme Court Indira Jaising, who also wanted to intervene in the matter on behalf of certain individuals, objected to this request saying it would amount to passing a gag order on the press. The apex court bench declined the request made by the state government.

The case will be heard next on Feb. 2.

Also Read: Judge Loya’s Death: 13 Questions That Remain Unanswered