A Family Breaks Its Silence: Shocking Details Emerge In Death Of Judge Presiding Over Sohrabuddin Trial. By NIRANJAN TAKLE // सीबीआई जज की मौत को लेकर उठे सवाल - Ravish Kumar
The Supreme Court had ordered that the trial (of Amit Shah) be heard by the same judge from start to finish. But, in violation of this order, J T Utpat, the judge who first heard the trial, was transferred from the CBI special court in 2014, and replaced by Loya. On 6 June 2014, Utpat had reprimanded Amit Shah for seeking exemption from appearing in court. After Shah failed to appear on the next date, 20 June, Utpat fixed a hearing for 26 June. The judge was transferred on 25 June. On 31 October 2014, Loya, who had allowed Shah the exemption, asked why Shah had failed to appear in court despite being in Mumbai on that date. He set the next date of hearing for 15 December...
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 BJP’s national president at the time of Loya’s
death. The media reported that the judge had died of a heart attack.
सीबीआई जज की मौत को लेकर उठे सवाल
पहाड़ों में जितनी बर्फ नहीं गिरी है उससे कहीं ज़्यादा दिल्ली में सत्ता के गलियारों में बर्फ गिर रही है. दो दिनों से दिल्ली में बर्फ की सिल्ली गिर रही है मगर कोई इसके बारे में बात नहीं करना चाहता. एक ऐसी रिपोर्ट आई है जिसे लेकर पढ़ने वालों की सांसें जम जाती हैं, जो भी पढ़ता है अपना फोन बंद कर देता है कि कहीं कोई इस पर प्रतिक्रिया न मांग ले.पत्रकार इस रिपोर्ट को छोड़कर बाकी सारी रिपोर्ट धुंआधार तरीके से ट्वीट कर रहे हैं ताकि बर्फ की इस सिल्ली पर जितनी जल्दी हो सके, धूल जम जाए. बहुत मुश्किल से निरंजन टाकले नाम के एक रिपोर्टर ने एक जज की लाश पर जमी धूल की परत हटा कर ये रिपोर्ट छापी है, बहुत आसानी से उस रिपोर्ट को यह दिल्ली बर्फ की सिल्ली के नीचे दबा देना चाहती है.
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. “His wife in Mumbai,
myself in Latur city and my daughters in Dhule, Jalgaon and Aurangabad received
calls,” early on the morning of 1 December 2014, Harkishan Loya, the
judge’s father, told me when we first met, in November 2016, in his native
village of Gategaon, near Latur city. They were informed “that Brij passed away
in the night, that his post-mortem was over and his body had been sent to our
ancestral home in Gategaon, in Latur district,” he added. “I felt like an
earthquake had shattered my life.”
The family was told
that Loya had died of a cardiac arrest. “We were told that he had chest pain,
and so was taken to Dande Hospital, a private hospital in Nagpur, by auto
rickshaw, where some medication was provided,” Harkishan said. Biyani, Loya’s
sister, 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, Harkishan said, Loya “was shifted to Meditrina
hospital”—another private hospital in the city—“where he was declared dead on
arrival.”
The Sohrabuddin case
was the only one that Loya was hearing at the time of his death, and was one of
the most carefully watched cases then underway in the country. In 2012, the
Supreme Court had ordered that the trial in the case be shifted from Gujarat to
Maharashtra, stating that it was “convinced that in order to preserve the
integrity of the trial it is necessary to shift it outside the State.” The
Supreme Court had also ordered that the trial be heard by the same judge from
start to finish. But, in violation of this order, JT Utpat, the judge who first
heard the trial, was transferred from the CBI special court in mid 2014, and
replaced by Loya. On 6 June 2014, Utpat
had reprimanded Amit Shah for seeking exemption from appearing in court. After
Shah failed to appear on the next date, 20 June, Utpat fixed a hearing for
26 June. The judge was transferred on 25 June. On 31 October 2014, Loya,
who had allowed Shah the exemption, asked why Shah had failed to appear in
court despite being in Mumbai on that date. He set the next date of hearing for
15 December.
Loya’s death on 1
December was reported only in a few routine news articles the next day, and did
not attract significant media attention. The Indian Express, while
reporting that Loya had “died of a heart attack” noted, “Sources close to him
said that Loya had sound medical history.” The media attention picked up briefly
on 3 December, when MPs of the Trinamool Congress staged a protest outside the
parliament, where the winter session was under way, to demand an inquiry into
Loya’s death. The next day, Sohrabuddin’s brother, Rubabuddin, wrote a letter
to the CBI, expressing his shock at Loya’s death.
Nothing came of the
MPs’ protests, or Rubabuddin’s letter. No follow-up stories appeared on the
circumstances surrounding Loya’s death. Over numerous conversations with Loya’s family members, I pieced together a
chilling description of what Loya went through while presiding over the
Sohrabuddin trial, and of what happened following his death. Biyani also gave
me copies of a diary she said she maintains regularly, which included entries
from the days preceding and following her brother’s death. In these, she noted
many aspects of the incident that disturbed her. I also reached out to Loya’s
wife and son, but they declined to speak, saying that they feared for their
lives.
Biyani, who is based
in Dhule, told me that she received a call on the morning of 1 December 2014
from someone identifying himself as a judge named Barde, who told her to travel
to Gategaon, some 30 kilometres from Latur, where Loya’s body was sent. The
same caller also informed Biyani and other members of the family that a post-mortem
had been conducted on the body, and that the cause of death was a heart attack. Loya’s father normally
resides in Gategaon, but was in Latur at the time, at the house of one of his
daughters. He, too, received a phone call, telling him his son’s body would be
moved to Gategaon. “Ishwar Baheti, an RSS worker, had informed father that he
would arrange for the body to reach Gategaon,” Biyani told me. “Nobody knows
why, how and when he came to know about the death of Brij Loya.”.. read more:
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/shocking-details-emerge-in-death-of-judge-presiding-over-sohrabuddin-trial-family-breaks-silenceसोहराबुद्दीन मामले में अनुकूल फैसला सुनाने के लिए चीफ जस्टिस मोहित शाह ने मेरे भाई को 100 करोड़ की पेशकश की थी: सीबीआइ जज लोया की बहन
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