Petition questions the validity of a report by Maharashtra police’s state intelligence commissioner, saying it did not fully examine all the loopholes in the probe.
New Delhi: The Bombay Lawyers’ Association (BLA) has filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) seeking a review of its 19 April judgment, which observed that judge B.H. Loya died a natural death and there was “absolutely no merit” in the plea seeking an independent probe into his death.
The petition questions the validity of a report by Maharashtra police’s state intelligence commissioner, saying that “the inquiry officer had clearly made up his mind and was being guided on specific lines”.
The lawyers’ body also submitted that the “unaffirmed report” (the probe report) was Maharashtra’s only defence when it objected to an independent investigation in judge Loya’s case.
“Clearly the State of Maharashtra was not acting bona fide or in the larger interests of justice, much less to assuage the feelings across various sections of society that the death of Judge Loya did indeed require an independent probe,” the petition said.
BLA then questioned how “within minutes of ordering the inquiry the commissioner state intelligence had gathered the names of five other Hon’ble Judges as possible witnesses for recording” since a news report only mentioned the name of one judge.
The petition also points out that even though “the inquiry, amongst others, had relied extensively on the statements” of the five judges to bring home the point that late Judge Loya had indeed died of heart attack and that they were the witnesses to the same; there was no attempt made to substantiate their presence at the scene at the time of the incident.
Doubts galore
“Equally the gathering of the material in the matter as done by Commissioner Intelligence was clearly improper and unwarranted by merely seeking letters in an extremely short time without personally meeting the concerned Hon’ble Judges and other persons whose letters have been obtained,” the petition says.
“The collection of the letters by Commissioner Intelligence does not bring truthfulness in the inquiry but shows an attempt to somehow collate and collect the letters to prepare a hurried report which indeed was done on 28 November,” the petition reads.
BLA has also submitted that report did not fully examine what it said were all the loopholes and inconsistencies in the investigation.
Settled by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, BLA objected to the apex court’s observations that the petition seeking an independent investigation into the death of Jugde Loya was filed with the intent to sensationalise the matter.
“The present review petition neither seeks to sensationalise the subject matter of the petition, nor make a veiled attempt to launch a frontal attack on the independence of the judiciary or to dilute the credibility of judicial institutions,” the petition says.
‘Not an attempt to malign dignity of judges’
BLA claims in the petition that there has been no attempt whatsoever to create prejudice or malign dignity of the judges whose statements form part of the inquiry “or those who gave the press interviews on the matter during the period of the inquiry”.
“Denial to either permit them to be cross-examined or to direct them to file affidavits in support of their statements have seriously negated rules of natural justice…” the petition said.
On 19 April, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra delivered a judgment on a batch of pleas that sought an independent investigation into the death of special CBI judge Loya.
The 52-year-old CBI judge was presiding over the politically sensitive trial pertaining to the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin in which BJP president Amit Shah was an accused.
However, before the trial could reach its logical conclusion, Loya allegedly died of a heart attack in Nagpur on the night of 30 November 2014 while attending a wedding.