The Bombay Lawyers Association has moved the Supreme Court to review its April 19 judgment, refusing to order an independent inquiry into the death of judge B.H. Loya.
The petition said the judgment was “manifestly wrong” and went against the public interest. It said a plea to the Supreme Court to order an independent inquiry could “under no circumstance be treated as an attack on the independence of the judiciary.”
The association, represented by senior advocate Dushyant Dave, said the judgment was based on an “unaffirmed report” of an inquiry conducted by the Commissioner of the Maharashtra State Intelligence. The State banked on the report for its defence without even filing an affidavit. The inquiry itself had relied extensively on the statements of the district judges to “bring home the point that the late judge had indeed died of heart attack.”
The enquiry itself had relied extensively on the statements of the district judges to “bring home the point that late Judge Loya had indeed died of heart attack and that they were the
witnesses to the same”. However, none of these four judges were asked to file sworn affidavits nor were allowed to be cross-examined as witnesses.
“Undisputedly each of the persons who have given statements therefore are witnesses in the eyes of law and therefore their cross examination was a condition precedent before finally deciding the
present petitions. Denial to either permit them to be cross examined or to direct them to file affidavits in support of their statements have seriously negated rules of natural justice and thereby the judgment clearly suffers from serious errors apparent on the face of the record and deserves to be recalled,” the review petition contended.
The petitions filed on the death of Judge Loya was no attempt whatsoever to create prejudice or malign dignity of the judges whose statements form part of the enquiry or those who gave the press interviews on the matter during the period of the enquiry, it said.
In fact, the review petition pointed out that the petitioners had not chosen to come to the Supreme Court. Their petitions were trasnferred to the apex court from the Bombay High Court, thus seriously handicapping the chances of the application to come to the Supreme Court in appeal.
“The judgment has resulted in miscarriage of justice if not complete negation of justice on the facts of the case... the writ petitions were necessitated on account of serious disquiet within judicial circles about sudden passing away of Judge Loya,”the review petition said.
