Many Questions Arise From Judge Loya’s Son’s Press Meet

The son of special CBI judge Brijmohan Loya on Sunday said that he had no suspicions about the sudden death of his father that took place on December 1, 2014 in Nagpur where he had gone to attend a wedding ceremony and that he did not want an investigation into the incident. Justice Loya, at the time of his death, was presiding over a trial into the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in which BJP national president Amit Shah, then minister of state for home in Gujarat, was an accused. Shah was discharged the month Loya died away from home.

“My family had some suspicions earlier. But now they are clear,” judge Loya's son Anuj told a press conference on Sunday adding that he has “no suspicions” and therefore, he does not want any probe. His statement came a day after the Supreme Court, while hearing a PIL filed by a Maharashtra-based journalist, called the mysterious death of the CBI judge a “serious issue” and asked the Maharashtra government to produce all the documents related to the case by Monday. Four senior-most judges of the apex court on Friday had protested the assignment of this important case to a junior bench of Justice Arun Mishra, who is allegedly perceived to be very close to the ruling BJP.

On December 1, 2014, Loya’s family was informed that he had died at a government guest house for VIPs in Nagpur, where he had travelled for a colleague’s daughter’s wedding. The family was told that Loya had died of a cardiac arrest. He had chest pain, and so was taken to Dande Hospital, a private hospital in Nagpur, by an auto rickshaw, where some medication was provided.

In an interview to the Caravan magazine, Loya’s sister Anuradha Biyani, who is a medical doctor, described Dande Hospital as “an obscure place”, and said that she “later learnt that the ECG”—the electrocardiography unit at the facility—“was not working.” Later, Loya “was shifted to Meditrina hospital”— another private hospital in the city— “where he was declared dead on arrival”.

The press conference was hastily convened at 6 pm on Sunday. The venue was Advocate Ameet Naik’s fellow lawyer’s office in Mumbai. Naik is considered close to Hitesh Jain, another lawyer in Mumbai who is also a BJP spokesperson. Social media is abuzz with speculation after the press conference.

Here are some of the questions that need to be answered:

(1) Why did Anuj Loya choose the date, time and venue he did for the press conference?

(2) Did he really do this on his own?

(3) Why was Hitesh Jain, a BJP associate, involved in this press conference?

(4) Why did Anuj Loya not take any questions from media persons?

(5) Why did other family members such as Anuj Loya’s aunt and uncle refute his statement that they do not have any suspicion of their brother’s death? Why weren’t they present in the media interaction?

(6) What was retired District Judge KB Katkar doing in the surprise press conference?

(7) If it is indeed a natural death, then why fear a judicial inquiry?

(8) If it was natural death because of heart attack, as Katkar puts it, how was there presence of blood strains on the neck at the back of the shirt? Why were Judge Loya’s spectacles “stuck under his body” even after the post mortem? His belt was twisted in the opposite direction, as alleged by Judge Loya’s sister, and the pant clip is broken. His shirt had blood on it from his left shoulder to his waist. Why?

(9) Why, how and when did an RSS man – Ishwar Baheti – come to know about Judge Loya’s death even before family?

(10) If Judge Loya’s death was deemed suspicious (the fact that a post-mortem was ordered suggests that it was), a panchnama should have been prepared and a medico-legal case should have been filed. But it was not done. Why?

(11) As per legal procedure, the police department is expected to collect and seal all the personal belongings of the deceased, list them all in a panchnama and hand them over to the family as they are. Contrary to the standard procedure, the family was allegedly not given any copy of a panchnama.

Judge Loya’s mobile phone was returned to the family by Baheti, and not by the police. Why? Why did the family get his mobile on the third or fourth day despite asking it to be provided immediately?

(12) The cell phone had information about his calls and all that happened. Had it been given in time, they would have known about it. And the SMSes. Just one or two days before this news, a message had reportedly come which said, “Sir, stay safe from these people.” That SMS was on the phone. Everything was deleted from it. Who deleted them and why?

(13) How and why was Judge Loya taken to the hospital in an auto rickshaw, when the auto stand nearest to Ravi Bhavan is around two kilometres away from it?

(14) Why was the family not informed when Judge Loya was taken to hospital? And why are there variations in the precise time of his death.

(15) Why was there no word on the post-mortem report which raises several questions? What about the allegedly forged signature? Every page of the post-mortem report is signed by the senior police inspector of Sadar police station, Nagpur, and by someone who signed with the phrase “maiyatacha chulatbhau”— or the paternal cousin brother of the deceased. This latter person is supposed to have received the body after the post-mortem examination. However, Loya’s father does not have any brother or paternal cousin brother in Nagpur.

Although the Supreme Court is still looking into the matter, It would be only be right for the govt. to clear the air on these issues.