Justice AP Shah said head of judiciary or Chief Justice of Bombay High Court should look into the matter

New Delhi:  How a judge deciding whether BJP chief Amit Shah should be tried for murder died in December 2014 must be investigated, says one of the most respected judicial voices in the country, Justice AP Shah.

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Apoorvanand, Hartosh Singh Bal, Manisha Sethi, Syeda Hameed & Shabnam Hashmi addressed the media and expressed grave concern at the findings of the investigation conducted by The Caravan.

A press statement issued after the event said, “Deeply troubled by attacks on ordinary people, lynching of Dalits, Muslims, killings of rationalists, journalists, activists over the past 3 years now we are suddenly faced with a new situation which forces us to ask: Would even the Judges and lawyers who refuse to tow the line be done away with?”

According to the facts revealed by The Caravan’s investigation, Brijgopal Harkishan Loya’s father Harkishan, sister Anuradha Biyani and niece Nupur Balaprasad Biyani have spoken after three years of his death to Niranjan Takle about the mysterious circumstances of his death in Nagpur in the night of Nov 30 or morning of Dec 1, 2014.

The panel put forward the demand for an immediate high-level Judicial Enquiry and security for the Loya family and the journalist Niranjan Takle.

Loya was hearing the case involving the allegedly-staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. The prime accused in the case was Amit Shah—Gujarat’s minister of state for home at the time of the killing, and the BJP’s national president at the time of Loya’s death.

According to the family members, Loya was persuaded to go to Nagpur (he was quite reluctant to go) to attend the wedding on November 30, 2014, of a colleagues’ daughter. On December 1, 2014, various members of the family received calls from someone who introduced himself as judge Barde informing them that Loya had a cardiac arrest and died. His post-mortem had already been conducted and his body had been sent to the ancestral home in Gategaon. They were told that he had chest pain and was taken to a private institution called the Dande Hospital in an auto rickshaw. Later, he was shifted to Meditrina hospital—another private hospital. He was declared dead on arrival. Ishwar Baheti, an RSS worker, informed Loya’s father that he would arrange for the body to reach his native place.

The Press conference was aimed to reveal the facts towards the general public.

The investigative report which has appeared in three parts in The Caravan raises questions and points out to inconsistencies in the story told so far to the world and the family by officials, said speakers.

The following were a few points raised by the speakers today:
● Different versions of the time of death given in the postmortem report and telephonic information given to the family
● Informing the family only after post-mortem was done and not immediately when he was taken ill or immediately after his death
● Loya was only 48 yrs with no history of any heart ailment
● He was in a VIP guest house, a CBI Judge, yet taken to hospital in an auto-rickshaw to an obscure private hospital
● the signature on every page of the post-mortem report by “Maiyatacha Chulatbhau”, or paternal cousin, according to the family there is no such person
● the wiping clean of all data from Loya’s phone before it was returned to the family
● the presence of blood on his clothes
● the role played by an RSS activist in telling Loya’s family about the location of his body and delivering his phone, to the family
● Sending Loya’s body to the village unaccompanied by anyone but the ambulance driver
● If it was a natural death why was the post-mortem conducted
● Why there was no panchnama
● Barde had not gone with Loya, why did he call?
● How did the RSS man know in which hospital Sarita Mandhane was?
● Why did the PM report showed the clothes as ‘Dry’ when there were blood stains on them?
● Why was the family discouraged from doing the second post-mortem?
 

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On 1 December 2014, Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, the judge presiding over the Sohrabuddin trial in the CBI special court in Mumbai, died in Nagpur.

On the morning of 1 December 2014, the family of 48-year-old judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, who was presiding over the Central Bureau of Investigation special court in Mumbai, was informed that he had died in Nagpur, where he had travelled for a colleague’s daughter’s wedding. Loya had been hearing one of the most high-profile cases in the country, involving the allegedly staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. The prime accused in the case was Amit Shah—Gujarat’s minister of state for home at the time of Sohrabuddin’s killing, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national president at the time of Loya’s death. The media reported that the judge had died of a heart attack.

Loya’s family did not speak to the media after his death. But in November 2016, Loya’s niece, Nupur Balaprasad Biyani, approached me while I was visiting Pune to say she had concerns about the circumstances surrounding her uncle’s death. Following this, over several meetings between November 2016 and November 2017, I spoke to her mother, Anuradha Biyani, who is Loya’s sister and a medical doctor in government service; another of Loya’s sisters, Sarita Mandhane; and Loya’s father, Harkishan. I also tracked down and spoke to government servants in Nagpur who witnessed the procedures followed with regard to the judge’s body after his death, including the post-mortem.

From these accounts, deeply disturbing questions emerged about Loya’s death: questions about inconsistencies in the reported account of the death; about the procedures followed after his death; and about the condition of the judge’s body when it was handed over to the family. Though the family asked for an inquiry commission to probe Loya’s death, none was ever set up.

At 11 pm on 30 November 2014, from Nagpur, Loya phoned his wife, Sharmila, using his mobile phone. Over around 40 minutes, he described to her his busy schedule through the day. Loya was in Nagpur to attend the wedding of the daughter of a fellow judge, Sapna Joshi. Initially he had not intended to go, but two of his fellow judges had insisted that he accompany them. Loya told his wife that he had attended the wedding, and later attended a reception. He also enquired about his son, Anuj. He said that he was staying at Ravi Bhavan, a government guest house for VIPs in Nagpur’s Civil Lines locality, along with the judges he had accompanied to Nagpur.

It was the last call that Loya is known to have made, and the last conversation that he is known to have had. His family received the news of his death early the next morning.

To continue reading the full story published by Caravan magazine click here.

Republished in part with permission.

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