A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the public interest litigations (PILs) seeking an independent probe into the death of special CBI judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya. Terming the petitions “frivolous and motivated”, Justice DY Chandrachud said that these litigations were an attempt by the petitioners to “malign” the judiciary.
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and justices AM Khanwilkar and Chandrachud had reserved their judgement in the judge Loya case on March 16. Chandrachud, while reading the judgement, lambasted the petitioners and said that there is “no reason to disbelieve the sequence of events leading to the death as narrated by the four judicial officers namely Shrikant Kulkarni, Shriram Modak, R. Rathi and Vijay Kumar Barde and the assertions of Bombay High Court Justices Bhushan Gawai and Sunil Shukre.”
Subsequently, the top court dismissed the petitions and declared Loya’s death to be natural.
The Opposition parties’ leaders, activists and lawyers such as Prashant Bhushan and Dushyant Dave had started raising questions about the judge’s death following a story by The Caravan magazine. In the story published on November 20, 2017, Loya’s sisters, Anuradha Biyani and Sarita Mandhane, and father Harkishan Loya had raised doubts about the circumstances leading to the judge’s death.
Loya was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh “fake encounter” case, in which Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah was also named as an accused. On December 1, 2014, Loya died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur, where he had gone to attend the marriage of the daughter of a fellow judge, Sapna Joshi.
Soon after The Caravan’s story was published, Congress president Rahul Gandhi picked the issue to target questions at Shah and the BJP during the Gujarat Assembly polls.
During the hearings, the courtroom had witnessed a fierce exchange of arguments between the lawyers representing the petitioners, Dushyant Dave and Indira Jaising, and those representing the state of Maharashtra, Harish Salve and Mukul Rohtagi.
Announcing the verdict, Justice Chandrachud said, “There is absolutely no merit in the writ petitions, Judge Loya’s death was natural.” The three-judge bench also appeared to be critical of the lawyers arguing for the petitioners with Justice Chandrachud saying that senior counsel Dushyant Dave had gone to the extent of insinuating “even judges not associated to the present petitions…as well as Justices Chandrachud and Khanwilkar” sought to “tarnish the institution of judiciary under the garb of an investigation.”
The court further observed that the petitioners had tried to “create an impression that it [request for probe] is for an investigation, but it was against the judiciary”. The bench went on to state: “PIL jurisdiction is being misused to settle political agenda. There is a great danger if this is allowed to continue.” Expressing anguish over misuse of PIL’s jurisdiction by the petitioners and interveners, the top court said the PIL’s jurisdiction has been “misused for personal agenda.”
Soon after the SC judgement, Maharashtra state counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar said that the court while reading the judgement had also said that it could have slapped a contempt notice on the petitioners for their statements and conduct during the hearing, but it chose not to. “While delivering the judgement the court has expressed its anguish about the conduct of public interest litigations nowadays. Somewhere the court has said that these are ‘vested interest litigations’. Nowadays PILs are being filed just to settle the political scores,” Katneshwarkar told Newslaundry.
“The court could see the unnecessary allegations levelled by the lawyers of the petitioners against the judges of the lower judiciary as well as the high court,” he said. He further explained the grounds for rejection of the PILs. “It was a natural death that is what the Supreme Court has observed. The court has believed the statements of the Judges who were accompanying judge Loya. The court had considered the discrete inquiry report which was conducted by the State Intelligence Department and accordingly by considering each and every material on record, the court has dismissed all the petitions,” said Katneshwarkar.
A senior SC lawyer and petitioner in the case, Bhushan appeared disgruntled with the judgement. He went on to the extent of dubbing today’s judgement as “a black day for the Supreme Court.”
“It is very unfortunate that the statements of the four judges did not appear on affidavits before the Supreme Court. Even the statement of the police personnel didn’t come on an affidavit, that is why nobody can surely say whether these judges actually gave this statement,” Bhushan said while addressing the media at the Supreme Court complex. “Even if we accept the judges’ statement, Justice Kaul had said that in the ECG report of judge Loya, there is no evidence that his death was due to a heart attack.”
Meanwhile, Tehseen Poonawalla, also one of the petitioners, pointed out at the lacunes in the SC’s observations. He questioned the “discreet inquiry” carried out by the Maharashtra police. Poonawalla told Newslaundry, “Let the judgement come. We will read what is said in the statements and what the judgement is and we will decide what to do further legally because this only the lawyers can decide.”
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