Supreme Court reserves order on plea seeking independent investigation on Judge Loya's death

The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its judgment on a plea seeking an independent investigation in the death of special judge BH Loya who allegedly died of a heart attack.

Concluding the arguments for Maharashtra, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi attacked the conspiracy theories put forth by the petitioners and targeted the online news portal Caravan's November 2017 article which had first raised the question on judge Loya's death. Rohatgi termed the news articles covering the issue as "innuendos" and the PILs seeking an investigation as a "facade".

"Not a word of Caravan is to be believed. It is only in the business of sensationalising," the former Attorney General said before a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. Rohatgi added that the media articles were not to be believed since it was aimed at denting the image of the judiciary.

The Maharashtra government added that the batch of petitions seeking an independent investigation were nothing but an attempt to target "one individual" (BJP president Amit Shah) in the guise of upholding the rule of law. Rohatgi suggested that the idea behind the petitions were to keep the "pot boiling" and urged the top court to avoid constituting an independent probe that would simply cast doubt on the four judges and the judiciary.

Earlier in January, Maharashtra had submitted a 50-page intelligence report including statements from four judges from the Bombay High Court who attested that they were with judge Loya on the night of his death. In their statement, included in the report, the four judges said that judge Loya died of a heart attack in Nagpur on the intervening night of November 30 and December 1, 2014.

At the time of his death, judge Loya was hearing the controversial Sohrabuddin fake encounter case where Shah was a key accused.

"This court has the power to order investigation and it has exercised its power in cases of fake encounter or riots. But in this case, the court should be very careful in ordering the investigation as the serving judges and even the administrative committee of Bombay High Court will then have to record their statements under section 161 of CrPC in the case," Rohatgi added defending the report.

"The idea behind these petitions is to keep the pot boiling. The newspapers will have a field day. Entire sequence in this case is now before the court. Statements of judges who were along with Loya in his last moments are before the court. If the last scene theory is applied, then the last scene persons are the two judges of Bombay high court and district judges," he said.

"They (petitioners) say they are here to protect the rule of law but somehow target an individual who they think is so powerful that he has done all the things. They are using death of a judge as facade so that the judiciary orders an inquiry against that individual. But in that motive, they are causing immense damage to judiciary," Rohtagi said.

The top court's order came weeks after the case shook the corridors of power and became the catalyst for the unprecedented press conference held by four senior Supreme Court judges alleging impropriety. At the press conference, Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur and Kurian Joseph bared their anguish over Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra's alleged breach of institutional integrity by tinkering with a well-established system.

On January 8, at the news conference, Justice Ranjan Gogoi – presumed to be the next Chief Justice, had hinted that the allocation of judge Loya's case to a relatively junior bench in lieu of the seniors was the catalyst for calling the news conference.