MUMBAI: A public interest litigation filed here at the Bombay High Court on Monday has demanded independent probe into the death of special court judge Brijmohan Loya in 2014.
“As per the news reports published by Caravan magazine there appears to be a lot of confusion regarding the circumstances in which Judge Loya died at Nagpur in 2014 and hence we have sought formation of a Commission of Enquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court Judge,” Adv Ahmed Ali, president of the Bombay lawyers’ association, who has filed the petition told the New Indian Express.
“The news report/story has shaken the conscious of the judiciary as well as the legal fraternity. If independence and integrity of the judiciary is to be preserved, then the death of Judge Loya and the circumstances surrounding the same should be thoroughly investigated by a Commission of Enquiry headed by retired Supreme Court judge,” said the petition.
This is not the first petition of this kind. Demand for an investigation into Loya’s death is being raised almost as soon as the story was first published in November 2017. Around 150 advocates of the 1,700-member Latur Bar Association, 470 of the 5,000-odd lawyers of the Punjab and Haryana high court, retired Bombay High Court judge BH Marlapalle and former Delhi High Court Chief Justice AP Shah have sought an inquiry into the death of the judge.
Judge Loya died of a cardiac arrest in Nagpur where he had gone to attend a wedding on December 1, 2014 and on December 30, 2014 BJP chief Amit Shah was discharged of all charges in the case, the petition points out while seeking independent inquiry into the case.
The judge’s family had called the death unnatural in the interview to The Caravan magazine. The Caravan article quoted judge Loya’s sister Anuradha Biyani raising questions about the death. Judge Loya’s uncle told that he was under immense pressure and had considered quitting the job. The Loya family also raised doubts over who ordered the postmortem and identity of the person who signed off on it. The family claimed there were blood stains on the collar of judge Loya's shirt when his body was returned. The petition has mentioned all these references while pleading for an independent inquiry into the death of the judge.