Judge Loya: All petitions are based on newspaper articles, filed with ulterior motive, Mukul Rohatgi for Maharashtra

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared and argued today for the State of Maharashtra in the PIL seeking a probe into the death of Judge Loya.

The matter, which is being heard by a Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, was taken up at 2 pm today.

Rohatgi’s initial submissions were on how these petitions did not adhere to the basic benchmarks required of a PIL, as per Supreme Court’s decisions.

“Court should verify the credentials of PIL petitioner…Court should satisfy itself that the petition involves a larger public interest”, he said.

It was his argument that these requisites were not satisfied by the current batch of petitions.

His main argument, however, was that the petitions were filed three years after the death of Judge Loya, and were based solely on magazine and newspaper reports. He also stated that a petition cannot be entertained based solely on such newspaper reports.

“His death occurred in December 2014. Nobody did anything for three years. Neither the aggrieved nor the PIL petitioners did anything.

An article then appears in Caravan magazine which is completely baseless. Then there was a flurry of petitions in Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.

It is settled law that ordinarily petitions will not be entertained based solely on newspaper articles. All the petitions are based on an article published in Caravan. None of these petitioners have done anything to find out the truth.”

Submitting that these petitions are filed with an ulterior motive of scandalising the judiciary, Rohatgi submitted,

“There will be contradictory newspaper reports everyday. The Court cannot look into all that. It is all for ulterior purpose that this is going on. This is all for scandalising the judiciary and the courts. Just because there is a particular political functionary belonging to a ruling party does not mean he has hold on judges and courts…All this is done with an oblique motive and not out of concern for the judiciary.”

Rohatgi also argued that the State had conducted its own investigation and had found nothing amiss.

“There is nothing amiss and the State is satisfied after a discreet inquiry. It is appropriate that curtains be brought down on this case.”

Subsequently, Rohatgi proceeded to deal with the merits of the case. In this regard, his arguments were based largely on the statements of the four judges who had come on record to state that the death of Judge Loya was a natural death.

“The only way the court can order an inquiry is by rejecting the statements of the four Additional District Judges who were witnesses. These judges were with him (judge Loya) till the end. The judges of the High court including the Chief Justice were informed contemporaneously. That is how they reached the hospital at Meditrina hospital at 7 am.”

Regarding the statement of the four judges, it was submitted by Rohatgi that the statements were issued by the judges on their letterheads and signed by them.

“It is a not a statement transcribed by police officers. The statements were signed by them in their own letterhead. The fact of the matter is that the four judges were with Loya all the time.”

Regarding why the Meditrina hospital did not issue a death certificate but directed post-mortem instead, Rohatgi stated,

“He was brought dead to the hospital. He did not die at the hospital. So they could not issue a death certificate since he had already passed away. Hence, they suggested post-mortem.”

Rohatgi then proceeded to trace the chain of events based on the statements given by the four judges.

Regarding the differences in the statements of the four judges, it was his contention that minor differences made the statements believable.

“There is no reason for suspicion on the statements of the judges since they have no axe to grind. There might be minor difference in their statements here and there since it happened many years ago, but all that is irrelevant. In fact, if every witness had parroted the same thing, then that would have been suspicious”, he said.

The hearing in the matter will continue on Friday this week.