Supreme Court assigns Judge B H Loya case as per roster

Special CBI Judge B H Loya (File)

The Supreme Court on Friday decided to assign for hearing two petitions seeking probe into Special CBI Judge B H Loya’s death to a bench as per the court roster. The petitions were mentioned on Friday before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra which ordered, “on mentioning, the matter is taken on Board. List the matters on 22nd January, 2018, before the appropriate Bench as per the roster”.

On January 16, the matter was heard by a two-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Mohan M Shantanagoudar which adjourned the matter by a week without fixing any date to hear it. The written order which came out late in the evening showed that the judges had also ordered that the matters be “put up before the appropriate bench.”

This raised doubts whether the judges had recused from hearing the matter. Four senior Supreme Court judges — Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph — had in a press conference last week cited the assignment of the Loya case as one of the reasons for their differences with the CJI.

The two petitions have been filed by Maharashtra-based journalist B R Lone and activist Tehseen Poonavala. The two-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra had earlier this week asked the Maharashtra government to hand over materials regarding the case to the petitioners saying, “It is a matter where they (the petitioners) should see everything.”