Today Congress demanded that Justice Loya death must be investigated by an independent SIT where there is no CBI Officer, there is no NIA Officer. Detailing out on the sequence of events congress alleged grave lapses in the immediate aftermath of the death and lack of records pertaining to days leading to the fateful day.
In its press release Congress provided a sequence of events that raises more questions than those answered by any probe into the demise of Justice Joya.
- Sohrabuddin Fake encounter case was transferred from Gujarat to CBI Court, Mumbai on directions of the Supreme Court in 2012. It was directed that same Judge would preside over the trial from start to finish.
- Judge Utpat was designated as Special Judge, CBI Court, Mumbai to preside over the trial of Sohrabuddin case.
- In July 2014, Judge Utpat was transferred abruptly without prior permission of Supreme Court.
- Judge Loya was working as a Registrar, Bombay High Court under the the Chief Justice Sh. Mohit Shah. He was transferred as Special Judge, CBI, Mumbai for Sohrabuddin trial.
- Judge Loya was under tremendous pressure to hear the Sohrabuddin Fake encounter matter in haste and to pass an order in favor of an accused to discharge him from this matter. Judge Loya wanted to discharge his judicial function independently and did not want to compromise his honesty.
- He wanted to get away from this case to avoid such high pressure from many influential persons from political background and higher judiciary. During the hearing he also received a draft order for him to sign and to pass order of discharge favoring an accused before 30.12.2014. For this he was offered money of 100 crores to be collected from Nagpur alongwith a residential flat/property in Mumbai
- Judge Loya sought help from some of his known friends in Mumbai but couldn’t get any support from them.
- Thereafter around Second week of October 2014, he approached Adv. Satish Uke, a practicing Advocate of Nagpur city and a whistleblower through Adv. Shrikant Khandalkar another practicing Lawyer of Nagpur and who was friendly with Adv. Uke and another Lawyer and Retd District Judge Prakash Thombre who was also close to Adv Uke.
- Judge Loya wanted to divert attention from himself and sought intervention by Adv. Uke as Adv. Uke had filed matters against influential persons who were pressurizing Judge Loya to pass discharge order.
- Adv. Shrikant Khandalkar & Adv. Satish Uke were well known whistleblower of Nagpur City. Three of them i.e. Uke, Khandalkar and Thombre in presence of fourth unknown person facilitated a video call between Judge Loya and Satish Uke. During the video call conversation Judge Loya , apart from Chief Justice Mohit Shah took names of Justice B.R. Gavai, Devendra Fadnavis and Subhanshu Joshi (Advocate in Nagpur) as the persons pressurizing him to pass the discharge order. He also spoke about a draft order sent to him by these persons to discharge an accused in Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. Judge Loya also told that he will be sending a draft copy of order to Retd Judge Thombre.
- Thereafter within 2-3 days Copy of draft order received by Retd. Judge Thombre and was in custody of Thombre.
- Between 4th November 2014 to 09th November 2014 Adv. Satish Uke, Adv. Prakash Thombre and one of their friend came to Delhi to take opinion of a known Senior Lawyer in Delhi about this issue. Senior Lawyer concerned in his opinion did not consider the said material sufficient to approach the Court. So Adv Uke and Adv Prakash Thombre returned disappointed to Nagpur (their travelling records are available).
Suspicious Death of Judge Loya in Nagpur on 30.11.2014
- The police security provided to Judge Loya was withdrawn in Mumbai from 24.11.2014 and he was not provided any security in Nagpur.
- There is no travel record of Judge Loya travelling to Nagpur in Train from Mumbai.
- There is no entry of Judge Loya or Judge Modak in Occupancy register of Ravi Bhawan of 30.11.2014.
- Post Mortem of Judge Loya was conducted on 1/12/14 Time: at 10.50-11.50 a.m. by Doctor Tumram without information and consent of immediate family members.
- There are several discrepancies in the post mortem report which are self evident
The entire press conference detailing out the shoddy investigations are in the video below:
