A recent mention of Judge Loya’s death in the parliament by TMC MP Mahua Moitra has riled the BJP’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju.
He rebuked the TMC MP and told the house the the Judge Loya case is now a settled case.
If you were to search for the case related to Judge Loya, you will indeed find that the SC has heard the case and closed the case as mere speculation about the death of Judge Loya.
What is important to understand for everyone is, how did the SC reach this conclusion?
In our justice system, any criminal case first goes to a trial court. The trial court is the lowest court, where most of the hearing of a case takes place. It is in the trial court that witnesses are examined, arguments heard and evidence submitted.
Unfortunately the Judge Loya death case never went to a trial court.
What was the case all about?
A fake encounter had taken place in Gujarat in which the Gujarat Police had killed Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his wife Kausar Bi. Gujarat Police investigated this case and came to the conclusion that the encounter story given by the police team was fake and a case was instituted against the police team. At that point in time, Amit Shah was the Minister of State for Home in Gujarat and Congress was running the government at the center.
The case was handed over to CBI because a fair trial was not possible in Gujarat, given that Amit Shah was a minister in the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat.
The trial was moved to Mumbai by the SC and a it issued an order that the trial be conducted from start to finish by a single judge. A judge JT Utpat was designated as the CBI Judge and the trial began.
The Judge had heard all the parties and was ready with a verdict but before he could deliver the verdict, Bombay High Court Chief Justice Mohit Shah transferred the judge overnight in total contravention of the SC directive. A new judge, B.H. Loya, who was the then Registrar of Bombay High Court was appointed as the replacement judge.
In this case, Amit Shah was the #1 Accused. This was in June 2014.
By this time, Narendra Modi had become the PM of the country and Amit Shah had become the President of BJP.
By November 2014, Judge Loya too had arrived at a decision. Unfortunately, he allegedly died of cardiac arrest on the night of 30th November 2014 and morning of 1st December 2014. The death happened at Nagpur while Judge Loya was on a ‘personal’ visit to the city to attend the marriage of a fellow judge’s daughter.
In Maharashtra, elections had taken place in 2014 and BJP had formed a government under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis.
The niece of Judge Loya approached an independent journalist, Niranjan Takle, to investigate this death. Niranjan Takle, then working for ‘The Week’ did a in depth investigation and came up with startling disclosures that pointed to foul play in the death of Judge Loya. ‘The Week’ refused to publish this story and Niranjan Takle had to leave his job and seek alternative publications who could carry the story. Unfortunately, no media house was willing to carry the story of his investigation.
This story eventually came out in November 2017 in ‘The Caravan Magazine’, which first got the allegations of the family recorded on video and built a water tight story.
Following the release of his story in ‘The Caravan Magazine’, there was furor in the judiciary and multiple PIL’s were filed in various courts.
It so happened that the then CJI Dipak Misra called for all PIL’s filed anywhere in the country to be clubbed together, prohibited the filing of any other case and initiated a trial in the Supreme Court itself.
Thus, the first step of a criminal trial, that of going to a trial court, where the case was to be examined based on evidence and arguments, never took place.
The High Court, The Supreme Court are all courts of appeal, they are not trial courts.
By short circuiting the due process of law, the Supreme Court did great disservice to the delivery of justice, fair trial and detailed investigation.
For all practical purposes, the SC decision to close the case without a due a proper trial should not be called as a settled case.
Also, in any criminal case, if new evidence is found, the case can be reopened and started again. Thus, by no stretch of imagination can the judgement in the Judge Loya case be called as a settled matter. New evidence may be found any time going forward, if and when BJP loses power at the state or the center.