Supreme Court bars all High Courts from hearing any petition on Judge BH Loya death case
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) today transferred two cases to do with the alleged suspicious death of CBI judge BH Loya from the Bombay high court (HC) to itself.
The SC then also asked other HCs not to entertain any PILs on the issue relating to Loya’s death and posted the matter for hearing on February 2.
As the Maharashtra government presented documents related to the Judge Loyadeath case, the SC said the issues raised in the current petitions are serious and “we must look into all documents with utmost seriousness.” The apex court then asked all parties to file any and all documents relating to judge Loya’s death.
A PIL seeking a probe into the judge’s death was filed before the Bombay High Court on January 8 by the Bombay Lawyers’ Association (BLA).
Today, the BLA’s counsel, Dushyant Dave, said the documents produced by Maharahstra were incomplete. In fact, he said he had documents obtained under RTI to show there were indeed suspicious circumstances attached to judge Loya’s death.
At the time of his death, on December 1, 2014, Loya was hearing the case of the alleged fake encounter killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh in which BJP chief Amit Shah was an accused party along with several others. Shah was subsequently discharged from the case by the judge who took over the case after judge Loya’s death.
In this case, the Maharashtra government is represented by advocate Harish salve.
Dave, the BLA’s counsel, took issue with Salve representing Maharashtra. He said Salve was Amit Shah’s counsel in the fake encounter case and therefore cannot appear for the Maharashtra government.
A three-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra today started hearing the pleas seeking an investigation into the death of the CBI judge. The CJI-led bench started hearing the pleas following the recusal last week by another SC bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.
Justice Arun Mishra’s recusal last week came after four of the most senior SC judges alleged that the Chief Justice was arbitrarily assigning important cases to select benches headed by junior SC judges. The Judge Loya case was one of many contentious issues brought up in the January 13 press conference by the four Justices. They alleged the CJI was assigning cases to benches of his personal preference.(Agencies)
