The Supreme Court on Friday termed as “serious” matter issues related to the alleged mysterious death of special
CBI Judge BH loya three years ago. Judge loya was hearing
the politically sensitive Sohrabuddin Seikh encounter case. The SC asked the Maharashtra Government to file his autopsy report by January 15 and said “this matter requires bi-parte hearing rather than ex-parte”.
Judge loya had allegedly died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague’s daughter.
“This is a serious issue. We would like the counsel for the State of Maharashtra to seek instructions and file the post-mortem report and other relevant documents by January 15,” a Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and MM Shantanagoudar said.
The SC rejected the plea by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, who was representing Bombay lawyers’ Association that the apex court should refrain from hearing the matter as the High Court was already seized of the case.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising said she also had instructions from Bombay lawyers’ Association to pray that this matter should not be heard by the top court. She said two orders have already been passed by the High Court with one regarding issuing of notice and other for listing of matter on January 23. Hence the top court should not hear the matter.
“We will see. We will take into consideration your objections. This is a serious issue,” the Bench said.
Advocate Varinder Kumar Sharma, appearing for Congress leader Tehseen Poonawalla, said this was a case where a mysterious death of a judge, who was hearing a sensitive case, had taken place on December 1, 2014 and it needed to be investigated independently.
The issue had come under the spotlight in November last year after media reports quoting his sister fuelled suspicion about the circumstances surrounding his death and its link to the Sohrabuddin case.
Poonawala, in his plea, said the circumstances revolving around the death of the judge were “questionable, mysterious and contradicting”.
The other plea filed by the journalist submitted that a fair probe was needed into the mysterious death of loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin encounter case in which various police officers and BJP president Amit Shah were named as parties.